How to Change Permalink Structure in WordPress without Duplicate Content
Recently we had a client who wanted to change their Permalink structure from
Old Permalink structure: /%author%/%category%/%postname%/
to:
New Permalink structure: /%author%/%category%/%postname%/%post_id%/
so that they would qualify for Google News. Apparently you need at least 3 digits in your URL in order to qualify for Google News.
I wanted to simply change the Permalink structure by going to Settings>Permalinks in WordPress. However, the problem is that Google sees 2 URLs for the same post which could cause Google to penalize you for duplicate content:
Google would see both the old and new Permalink structure for the same content:
For example, Google would see:
(old) http://example.com/Rebecca/News/MyPost/
and
(new) http://example.com/Rebecca/News/MyPost/222
So we need to make sure the old Permalink structure has a 301 redirect to the new Permalink structure.
Thankfully, after trying many plugins, we finally found and successfully implemented this plugin: Permalink Redirect WordPress Plugin
The directions on the site are very old and quite confusing.
Here’s how to use Permalink Redirect WordPress Plugin
- Download, Install and activate the plugin
- Go to Settings>Permalinks and copy down your old permalink structure
- While you’re in Settings>Permalinks, change the Permalink structure to your new permalink structure
- Go to Settings>Permalink Redirect and where it says “Old Permalink Structures”, paste in your old permalink structure
That’s it.
Category: Plugins
or simply use the redirection plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/ which does a similar job and more.
Ovidiu, I tried to use the plugin but then I tested the permalinks and they weren’t redirecting. Also, I found there to be too many options for what I needed which was a simple redirect of permalink structure.
well, I used it i.e. after I changed my default category text from category to kategorie (german) so a redirect of /category/ to /kategorie/ with the redirection plugin did the trick.
it also has stats so I know when the changes have propagated throughout the itnernet and in a couple of month when nobody links to the old structure anymore, I’ll just remove the redirect…
You don’t need the 3 letter ID for Google News so long as you use a Google News sitemap.
@Kevin I tried to find out more information about creating a Google News sitemap, but couldn’t find directions on how to do it. Can you point me to something that describes how to create a Google News sitemap?
Rebecca, thanks for the short and sweet tutorial..
but unfortunately it didn’t work out for me…. after installation I wasn’t able to find the ‘Permalink Redirect’ option anywhere in my admin panel.. m using WP 2.8.5
finally used permalinks migration plugin…
Hi to everyone. Kevin and Sapan please note that my question was prompted by your recent comment here. I received e-mail from Google this morning, December 17th, that stated one of my sites will be included in Google News but I needed the 3 digits in the post name. So, does anyone really know? Did they send me an old canned response or do I indeed need to make changes? I have the Google News sitemap ready to go and it sure would be nice if that is all that would be needed since there are literally thousands of old posts that would need to be redirected.
In the example above some form of redirect plugin (I used Redirection myself) or .htaccess 301 work is needed.
However, many people do not realize that there is a built in redirect function in WordPress since about 2.6 if you are moving from the default permalink format to anything else.
I recently wanted to change the permalink at designi1.com but i´ll lost all my Retweet count. There is anyway of changing permalink at wordpress without loosing all tweetmeme contage? any tip?
Hi,
Rebecca thank you for the post. There are some interesting comments.
@Bret does it mean that now the redirection plugins are not needed in case you are changing the default permalink structure. Does this also apply if you change a custom permalink structure to another custom permalink structure.
@Rebecca the plugin discussed was last updated on 2009-09-17. Does it work with the present version of WordPress.
Thanks in advance.
i tried using the redirect plugin to change permalinks but modified post redircts were not created. Trying to figure out why it did not work..
Reply to Kevin Spence:
“Article URLs. To make sure that we only crawl new articles, please make sure that your URLs are unique with at least 3 digits and are permanent.”
Google post “Getting Into Google News” can be found here http://support.google.com/news/publisher/bin/answer.py?hl=en-GB&answer=40787&ctx=cb&src=cb&cbid=-1hvuwmf4wwqkx&cbrank=1