I have been following a blogger whose blog has interested me because of various reasons. All of these reasons were not positive ones though! I have been watching this blog, among others, as a case study. Recently, the blogger decided to change the permalink pattern of his entire blog which has more than 600 posts! Honestly, I am very surprised to see this. I don’t understand why such a decision was made by a blogger who used to be moderately successful —but then his site was hit by notorious Google algorithm updates. And he lost majority of his traffic. Since then he has been trying hard to recover from the penalty. But this decision of changing permalinks has been, in my view, a really bad one.
The blogger changed permalink structure from %postname% to %post_id%/%postname%
Way back in June 2011, Chris Coyier of Digging into WordPress had posted that using a number field at the beginning of permalink structure will help WordPress to quickly locate the requested post in the database. He cited a piece from WordPress codex as well. This codex piece confirmed the theory.
WordPress permalink structure has no effect on performance
But that was long time ago. Since then I believe WordPress has solved this problem and now the piece cited by Chris no longer exist in the WP codex. The codex also does not mention anything that the permalink structure has an effect on performance of a WP website.
The blogger in question, did at least one thing right that he placed automatic 301 redirects on his old links using a plugin. He also claims that using post id in the URL enhances the server performance. In my belief his logic is baseless —although I am open to learn and understand how at present WordPress permalink structure may influence performance. If my readers have any information on this, please enlighten me.
Although 301 redirects are in place for the above-mentioned blog —but one must observe that Google does not take too many redirects as a good sign. The blogger mentions that his back links are lost -here also, I believe, he is mistaken. As long as 301 redirects are in place, Google will be able to follow the back links already he has. However, I repeat, Google does not really appreciate too many 301 redirects on a website. A large number of 301 redirects should be setup only if you’re shifting your website to a new domain name.
There is no denying the fact that the high speed websites are preferred by search engines when they rank the websites. So, attempts must be made to increase speed of your website. Caching plugins (like W3 Total Cache) for WordPress have limited effect if the website is located on a shared host. If your website is getting good amount of traffic, it is recommended that you shift your website onto a Virtual Private Server (VPS). On a VPS you have better control of your server environment. You can install software and tweak settings that your website needs for better performance.
However, high cost of VPS keeps small-time bloggers on shared servers. It is easily understandable. Professional blogging is not an easy thing in India. Nevertheless, if you have the right kind of skills, acumen, patience and ability to work hard —blogging can be a lucrative career option for you.
pawan singh says
A prominent problem addressed in a great way. thank you lalit for this latest information.
Siddharth Sharma says
Hello Dear Author,
I am really Satisfied with your research. but i want to know a little thing , as you said google doesn’t like too much 301 redirection link but can you please explain me more about it because when i migrated my blog from blogger to wordpress that time i redirected approx 65 link from blogger structure to wp structure linking.
Lalit Kumar says
Hi Siddharth,
For better SEO one should try to minimize the number of redirects as much as possible. However, while shifting a website from one platform to another, there is no other way but to setup 301 redirects. Permanent redirects are a savior in the ever changing arena of Internet. But these should be avoided whenever possible.
Siddharth Sharma says
So, What you want to say ? Should i need to change back into Blogger Permalinks ?
But it will change my everything because after migration and 301 redirection i have posted many blog post. They all will affect my search engine traffic.
If possible Add me on Facebook . Profile- /sanushar
Lalit Kumar says
Quite a bit depends on how much traffic your website is getting at present. But unless your traffic has decreased drastically, I would not recommend changing back to Blogger scheme. Just go on with the current structure.
ritu vir says
very informative article indeed. In fact I was thinking of changing my permalink structure. But, now, I think I will do some more research.
Thanks
Lalit Kumar says
Your blog is a good one. I don’t see any problem with it. Don’t worry about speed so much at present. Just focus on good content, consistent posting, SEO and promotion.