SEO CheckList

Do you blog? If your answer is yes, then you most probably know what Permalink is. Permalink is your blog post’s permanent link, hence, permalink. Whenever somebody links to one of your particular post, they’ll be using this permalink unless you prefer them to use your trackback URL instead. Using WordPress, you’re given carte blanche on how you prefer your permalink to look like. You could use any of the following permalink structures for your posts:

http://www.domainname.com/?p=123
http://www.domainname.com/2008/01/28/sample-post/
http://www.domainname.com/archives/123
http://www.domainname.com/%postname%/

You could, of course, choose whichever tickles your fancy. However, when talking about the SEO game, there’s an ideal structure for permalinks. It’s been discussed here numerous times before and of course, in other SEO-centric blogs. When trying to optimizing a web site or a blog, one of the key factors is none other than keywords or key phrases. And yes, it IS an important aspect of blog optimization. When querying for a certain keyword, the permalinks are also looked up. No, really. Try it out. Type a keyword or a key phrase query in Google and you can see some results from blog sites have their permalinks highlighted, meaning Google used the permalinks as a gauge of relevancy.

Hence, when deciding on the permalink structure, it’s best if you do away with garnishings and stick to what’s important. That would mean options number 1 and 3 are out of the running. You could choose between the second option, the one with the post name and the date, and the fourth, the one with the post name only. You could go with the post name only permalink, if you want your posts to have a certain degree of timelessness. If you want people to be aware of when the post was made, however, the second option is the more logical choice.