Why Do Permalinks Need to End With %postname% ?

  • I just read in the permalinks page that we need to end with the post name (%postname%) or ID. But I can’t figure why or what happens if we don’t.

    I have a site (f164.com/journal) that I set up previously that uses /%postname%/%monthnum%/%year%/ and it seems to work. Can someone explain why we need to be limited to ending with %postname% vs closing with a date, etc. Is the way I’m doing it breaking something that I’m not aware of.

    Thx.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    They don’t NEED to, they just … do because that’s how we think ??

    Also if you go to domain.com/2011, you’ll get ALL the posts from 2011, so logically having a post go YYYY/MM/POSTNAME follows from that. Human readable and follow-able.

    Nothing will break if you do it your way though.

    Thread Starter ventrilqstman

    (@ventrilqstman)

    Makes sense. It just seemed as if it was made an important issue in the codex. Thanks for the info.

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    Before 3.3, having a URL of (or starting with) %postname% would seriously slow your site down. Today, not as horrible ??

    @ipstenu

    I experimented with permalink structures in the past and once set it to end with a file extension like %postname%.html to blur the permalink structure to the bouncing user. I don’t do it anymore on production sites but recently I tried it on my localhost resulting in a lot of 404s.

    My question is: what’s up with ending the permalinks with a file extention, like %postname%.html, .htm, .shtml, .jhtml, etc.? Is it OK to use or not recommended?

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    Never recommended to use a filetype with WP, especially since it’s like the cake. A lie.

    Just end with %postname%

    A user’s gonna figure out the structure once they visit your site, and remember you WANT people to remember your URLs so they can come back and find stuff!

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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