Permalink is the URL which is auto generated in your WordPress site for every new post or page. But a big question keeps arising in the mind of new users about the helpfulness of this URL or permalink and if it is really SEO friendly. The earlier version of WordPress used to create a default permalink what was not at all SEO friendly. However, things have changed now with developers coming out with newer and improved version of WordPress.

In WordPress 4.2, there are various options to choose from when it comes to building the permalink.

However, first it is important to know that what SEO permalink is actually. A SEO friendly permalink will consist a keyword to explain the article, this is easily understandable by human beings which altogether enhances the ranking in search engine effectively. Here is an example of SEO friendly permalink:

http://www.rohitink.com/ways-to-install-wordpress/

Whereas, the auto-generated plain permalink will usually look like:

http://www.rohitink.com/?p=10560

So, it is pretty much clear that auto generated permalink is actually not helpful in SEO.

However, WordPress allows enough options to customize the URL structure as per your need. So, rather than using the default permalink it is always best option to go for customizing the URL structure in the beginning. This can be done by going to the Admin area > Settings > Permalinks which will offer you plenty of options and these are:

Plain

This is the default URL structure which is not SEO friendly at all and looks like http://www.rohitink.com/?p=111

Day and Name

This is the second option which consists the date and post name but with these two, the permalink becomes bit lengthy and moreover the post too becomes outdated with time.

Month and name

This one too is similar to that of the day and name option which consists the month and post name and therefore carries the risk of becoming outdated after sometime.

Post name

This is probably the best and SEO friendly permalink which contains the post name only thus is short in length which is good for ranking in the search engine. It has been seen that most of the new users prefer to go with this option.

Custom structure

This is the most useful which allows users to create their own URL structure and most of the time larger business organization prefers to go for this option. But in order to create a custom permalink, you are required to add a special tag and tag should be wrapped with slash and percent sign. Tag can be such as category, year, day, hour, minute, second etc.

So, with these many options available you can easily customize the permalink in your WordPress site and the following points say why to customize the URL structure:

• WordPress does not choose the best URL structure for you always
• It might or might not contain the keyword
• You can always change the permalink later as well but that is accompanied with some negative results as proper redirects are to be set to ensure you do not lose the present SEO ranking.