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WordPress SEO for WordPress Content Comes First Permalinks in WordPress

Rhonda Bradley
Rhonda Bradley
2,010 Points

Could you please explain further whether permalink needs to be an exact match to post title?

I just wanted to clarify the requirements (re: permalink being exact match to post title) because in the beginning of the video, it said I needed to match the permalink to the post title - and I understood that to mean "exactly."

But later, when mentioning words like "the" and "and," it said that the permalink doesn't have t match exactly. I understand the general idea, but wonder if I could get some more precise instructions on when it does or does not need to match exactly?

Thanks very much for your input.

1 Answer

Stephanie Marson
Stephanie Marson
7,627 Points

Hello Rhonda- Permalinks do NOT have to match the post title exactly. In fact, there are several settings that would create different permalinks in your wordpress settings (Settings > Permalinks) such as page id - default, day and name, month and name, post title, etc. Here is the codex page for permalinks: http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks.

In regards to SEO and wordpress, you want to include keywords in your permalinks that would help search engines find your site. You may include the exact title of your page and you may not depending on the length of your title and what keywords are used. Here is a link to Yoast's SEO URL page for more information: https://yoast.com/wordpress-seo-url-permalink/. There are several videos from google employees discussing a range of questions on this subject. Hope that helps.

Rhonda Bradley
Rhonda Bradley
2,010 Points

Stephanie - Thank you so much for such a clear and thoughtful answer. I will definitely follow up with the links you provided, they are really helpful!