It took me quite a lot of time to reach this decision.

When I started this blog 15 months ago, I did not knew any SEO and did not know why permalinks actually matter.

If you have a look at Google search results, when you search something, there is always part of the keywords you are searching into the URL of the results:

This helps SEO a bit. It is not a miracle like receiving a link from a PR9 .edu site, but it is still adding up to the big picture.

If you made the mistake to use the default permalinks provided by WordPress, you probably see the links like this: www.m0rd0r.eu/?p=2112

There is nothing bad in this link, except there is NO keyword in it except “m0rd0r”, which pays nothing in the long term (believe me, I bought this domain just because it is cheap and this is my nickname in the online games I play – not for SEO purposes).

In the same time, this URL has two of the keywords it is designed for: https://www.m0rd0r.eu/gailardia-3-walkthrough-and-maps-part-iii/

Using long URL with %postname% helps your articles to be found easier. p=2112 means absolutely nothing for SEO.

Also, it is much more human-readable and it will be easier for you to work with Google analytics.

But what about the

Backlinks?

All those backlinks that you worked so hard from the beginning? You can’t sacrifice them, yes?

For this purpose, there is one method – you need to make all your old ?p=XYZ pages to respond with HTTP 301 – moved permanently error to the browser.

This is done by setting a .htaccess file to your http root folder like this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

Or if you are WP user like me, you may allow WordPress FTP access to your Blog and WordPress will create the .htaccess file for you. It is quite easy process. You only need to choose the %postname% format:

Go to WP-Admin ->  Setting -> Permalinks and choose the %postname% format. WP will do the remaining changes for you.

Doing this will tell the search engines the page has been moved permanently and they need to reindex with the new URL.

In the same time, the backlinks you’ve made will be redirected by the browser to the new page URL automatically and you will not lose your readers and back-link value.

So if you backlinked some page of my blog into your site – you don’t need to change anything.