Since the beginning of this month, I want to focus more on search engine optimization (SEO) for my blog. I’ve been getting 1000-2000 visitors a day for the last few months, but that was because of a help from Social Bookmarking sites. Take them all out, and the truth is that I’m only getting 500-800 visitors a day (only around 300 are from organic/search engines 
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With a bit of help from Dean Lees’ Permalink Migration plug-in, I’m all set!
My first step was to change my Permalink structure (the URL structure of the posts) from using /year/date/postname.html to simply /postname.html. Some suggested putting in category on the URL, which is not a bad thing. However, if one day you are going to change categories, then you are screwed 
Some were suggesting using /postname/ instead of /postname.html. As you can see, there are so many suggestions of SEO out there, but I’ve decided to choose the /postname.html as my best permalink structure for Wordpress.
Only one thing scares me, how about those visitors that I get from the search engines? Before Google starts to re-index my posts, the URL will surely be the old ones.
You can either tinker around with your htaccess file to redirect them (if you say “Huh? What’s an htaccess file? Then read the next option), OR use Dean Lee’s Permalink Migration WordPress plug-in.
I chose the later. Although I’m a techie person, I always love if someone makes something that makes your life easier. Hey, that’s what a programmer supposed to do, make someone else’s life easier (or replacing someone else’s job with a program 
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Changing your Permalink structure with the Permalink Migration Plug-in automatically
- It’s easy to use. Download, install the plug-in and activate as usual.
- Go to your WordPress’ administration-Settings-Permalinks and use the Custom Structure.
- Go to the plug-in settings at Settings-PermalinksMigration and update it (It will then activate the migration, so that when someone goes to your old URL, it will be auto-forwarded to the new URL on number 2 above.
- (Optional) If you are using WP-SuperCache plug-in, don’t forget to refresh the cache.
- (Optional) If you are using the XML Sitemap generator plug-in, don’t forget to regenerate the sitemap.
- Don’t forget to test whether it works!
That’s it! Simple, isn’t it?
If you type “onion head emoticon” on Google, you’ll see my blog on the first page:
if you noticed, the URL is still using my old structure of year/month/postname.html
However if you click on the URL, it will be “auto-redirect” to the new structure:
Good luck in migrating your Permalink Structure and optimizing it to be search engine friendly!
I’ve also been re-thinking to change my blog from /blogs/ to the root domain (www.cravingtech.com/blog). I’d still prefer the current one though, as I may want to put something on my root domain. Everyone says my current setting is bad for SEO. Don’t really have a clue what to do at the moment. Would love some advice from you guys!
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Great post, thank you for that. I am fairly new to blogging, I keep saying that. I am going on a year and just love it. I do get a majority of visitors from organic. I am in such a “niche” I would love those 500 visitors. I get an average of 100-200 uniques a day.
I am going to look into the perma link thing. I just need any info I can that will help me out. Thanks for providing more eduction to a newbie!
Susies last blog post..Politicians – Work or Play?
that is something .. i faced that same with google [ and most Search Engines ] when i tried to change my premalinks – when i was using wordpress – and i’m sure if i knew about that plugin i wouldn’t lost all these visits .
i remember the day i changed the premalinks before i totally renew my blog my stats dropped like 50 percent .
you want to change to /%post name%.html !!
that might work .. but you have to make sure that your root dir doesn’t have any html file with the same name as your post
then your visitors will be directed to that file not your blog .
ameos last blog post..Real Estate Agent in Ohio
Nice info…
You can change your URLs to point to root (like: http://www.ZZZ.com/post.html) instead of http://www.ZZZ.com/blogs/post.html without moving any files or installing wp in the root.
This can be done by setting different WordPress address (URL) and Blog address (URL)
For this goto settings and enter:
WordPress address(URL)- http://www.cravingtech.com/blog
Blog address (URL)- http://www.cravingtech.com/blog
Then you need to copy ur index.php to root and make one change in that file (http://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory)
Recheck permalink structure and its all done!
Davinder even doing that will also require that plugin that michael found
ameos last blog post..Real Estate Agent in Ohio
Why put .html at the end? Ain’t /postname enough already?
Deimos Tel`Arins last blog post..Dead Frontier Night One – Download – First Impressions
I think using .html at the end makes it easier for WP to distinguish from page and folder. Makes loading a little faster.
@Susie: Don’t worry..as your content grows, your visitors will grow too
@amoe: Well, all WordPress root files are php files mostly, so it should be safe to use those html files naming convention!
@Davinder: That’s what I’ve been trying to decide for months
..whether I should move my blog to my root.. what if I want to use my root domain for something else? Is it really worth moving my blog to the root domain?
@Deimos: Yeah, but a post with / looks weird.. and I guess .html looks better and who knows if Google loves it because they think that it’s a static file?
Last time, I thought of changing my permalink structure by putting .html behind. But thinking of the consequences, I didn’t do it. Now, I may want to think it again after you come out with this post. Thanks for sharing.
ahh.. I’ve been searching this plugin for a week, thanks Michael
I’ve been looking for a something like this for a while now but would like something which can give me more options like different permalink structures for certain categories
Any ideas?
archondigitals last blog post..Saying Goodbye to the Grid
@archondigital: Never heard or seen anything like it. I guess what you want is a bit too advanced
Maybe you need to hack the htaccess file more for further customizations. But it’s kinda dangerous and I’ll definitely not gonna try!
thats still good stats compared to mine. keep up the good work!
infots last blog post..Bill Gates Unplugged – Lecture
I managed to migrate my permalink structure but used a different plugin. I also found Advanced Permalinks, a plugin capable of giving you multiple permalink structures but sadly doesn’t work for Wordpress 2.5.1
archondigitals last blog post..Permalink Migration on Wordpress
Good thing I remembered you wrote this before. I am now going to change my permalink structure to the settings just like yours.
I hope this plugin will work with 2.7
Just tried it but the new url doesnt work – says nothing found. I followed the instructions but unsuccesful.
I tried to change my bloggista.org permalink from /%postname%/ to /%postname%-%post_id%/