Is it worth changing so URL does not show "?="

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Is it worth changing so URL does not show "?="

it is a new WordPress blog

Storyman

4:54 am on Jun 19, 2007 (gmt 0)

The blog site is two weeks old and have had over 200 unique visitors, 1 thousand visits, 6,000 page views, and 30+ saved as a favorite.

I made a classic error of having WordPress show "?=" in the URL for individual pages instead of something like "/archive/title of article"

Is it worth making the change to the friendlier URL now or should I just forget it and leave it with the "?=" URL?

venice

6:44 am on Jun 19, 2007 (gmt 0)

If you decide to change it there are plugins that will create redirects for all of those pages to your new format.

I picked up a WP site last year that was setup that way and switched it to permalinks. Months later and all PR is back on pages with no problems being found.

Personally, I'd switch, but that's me.

Wes_Young

3:57 pm on Jun 19, 2007 (gmt 0)

Yes it is worth changing in my opinion. Absolutely use the redirects, but I would change it asap.

Kurgano

5:10 am on Jun 20, 2007 (gmt 0)

Change it asap.
Use redirects for sure.
Ignore the blip in your site rankings. Wait, 2 weeks old? you're golden.

tomda

6:12 am on Jun 20, 2007 (gmt 0)

Yep! It is a must!
There is also one other issue with WP regarding Search Engine Optimisation.

1/ Double content -> Make sure that only index page and posts (single) are (Metatag robots "all"). Otherwise, all other pages (archives, tags, by month/by day/ by year, etc.) should have a robots metatag set to "none".

Less important but it is always to have a nice and strong robots.txt which ban access to directories to bots (like photo album, wp_admin, etc.)

So, when everything is set (use of permalinks for nice URL and use of robots metatag for SEO), then I suggest you go to the Google Webmastertools, place a sitemap.xml and remove old URL.

Good luck
Tomda