Permalink problem

[Ryan]

You shouldn't start the permalink string with any of %postname%, %category%, %tag%, or %author%.

I'm currently using the following :(
/%postname%/

I've seen many, many people recommending that approach for SEO reasons. Logically you want the shortest URL possible, so if you don't need any of the other details, then it makes sense to strip them out. It's not much use if there's a performance hit in doing so though :(

I guess this performance issue is why WordPress doesn't offer /%postname%/ as one of the default options :(

[Ryan]

Otto is my favorite person right now.

+1
In fact Otto is one my favourite WP people in general!

If I ever need someone to tell me I'm being an idiot, I can rely on Otto to dutifully inform me :D

Interesting article by the man himself on the upcoming 3.0 release:
http://ottopress.com/2010/my-recomme...s-3-0/#respond

[Kathy]

I did not know using /%postname%/ could cause problems. Although I don't expect this site to ever get that big.

But I did use it on this other site http://barttersite.org/ where I have way more than 50 pages. But it doesn't have much traffic because the topic is a rare disease. Does amount of traffic enter into the performance issue?

So what should I use then? Very confused here, more so than before I posted.

[Ryan]

Does amount of traffic enter into the performance issue?

Yes, very much so. If you don't get much traffic, then the only issue is a slightly slower loading page. If you get lots of traffic, then that extra processing required would presumably bog the server down and make it more likely to run slowly, or on a shared server you would run the risk of having your account suspended.

[Kathy]

Went off to the codex to read up on permalinks, and figured out why my url had /category/ in it. Because I had checked off more than one category! Once I had only one category checked for my post, /category/ GONE!

Since this site has no content yet, I can choose a setting with a number at the beginning, so I choose month and name
thesite.org/2010/04/sample-post/

On to the next issue.

[chipbennett]

OK, sorry it took me so long to get back. You don't want to know why, LOL.

First, I was tired when I posted. I should have included a link to the site.
It is still a work in progress.
http://waynecountynow.org/

I used custom structure, /%postname%
I did NOT use /%category%/%postname%/

Yet if you go to the site and click on a category, like Activities, this is what I get
http://waynecountynow.org/category/activities/

Note the word category inserted in the middle

That is by design. Activities is a category, not a post.

When you click on a category, the category permalink structure is displayed.

If you then click through to a post, the post permalink structure will be displayed.

So, if you click on the link for the activities category, you are looking at the category page, which is represented by the category permalink.

[chipbennett]

Went off to the codex to read up on permalinks, and figured out why my url had /category/ in it. Because I had checked off more than one category! Once I had only one category checked for my post, /category/ GONE!

Since this site has no content yet, I can choose a setting with a number at the beginning, so I choose month and name
thesite.org/2010/04/sample-post/

On to the next issue.

That's not actually what happened.

Your permalink had "category" in it because you were looking at a category URL.

thesite.org/2010/04/sample-post/ is a post URL

thesite.org/category/activities/ is a category URL

Click on the link for whatever category is selected for thesite.org/2010/04/sample-post/ (e.g. activities), and you will see thesite.org/category/activities.

The confusion might come from your site only having one post categorized, so that the category page looks identical to the single-post page.

[Kathy]

Understood. My confusion came from seeing the actual word "category" in the url instead of the word "activities" in the url. But since the post was changed to a single category, that's gone, POOF!

And now I've chosen a permalink beginning with a number. Learned two things.

[chipbennett]

Understood. My confusion came from seeing the actual word "category" in the url instead of the word "activities" in the url. But since the post was changed to a single category, that's gone, POOF!

And now I've chosen a permalink beginning with a number. Learned two things.

That's what I'm telling you: it's not gone.

Your category pages will still have "category" in the permalink. That's built-in to WordPress (though you can change the text used for the category base).

Let me give you an example from your site:

The URL for your post "Second Sample Post":
http://waynecountynow.org/2010/04/second-sample-post/

That post is categorized as "action items". The URL for the "action items" category page:
http://waynecountynow.org/category/action-items/

Again, I think the confusion may have come from, initially, only having one post in a given category, such that the category page looked identical to the single post page.

[Otto]

I wrote a post expanding on this a bit.

http://ottopress.com/2010/category-i...dered-harmful/