Permalink Migration Plugin - Great Plugin For SEO
I was debating with Ajay this morning the merits of having a co.uk or a .com domain and whether having a .com address would result in better placement by Google. I’m still not sure what’s best, but Ajay prompted me to make what is probably the most important change to my blog I’ve made in a long time to improve my Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) which was to create user-friendly permalinks for my articles.
Before I started using WordPress back in June 2006 I had been using Blogware. I managed to create a huge number of ReWrite Rules in my .htaccess file so that around 95% of any external links to my old Blogware posts would point to my new WordPress urls. However, I couldn’t use friendly urls within WordPress as the convoluted process I’d used to create the Rewrite Rules wouldn’t work.
Luckily Ajay told me about the Permalinks Migration Plugin that allows you to safely change your permalink structure without breaking the old links to your website, and even doesn’t affect your search engine rankings. It does this by doing the redirecting within WordPress, and it even sends a “301 Redirectâ€, or a Permanent Redirect to search engines to tell them to update their urls.
Installing it took 30 seconds, so now if someone clicks externally on one of my old blogware urls e.g. this one they will (i) get redirected via my .htaccess file to my old ugly WP url www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2005/12/05/652/ and then the Permalinks Migration Plugin will redirect it to the new shiny user-friendly url - http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2005/12/05/10-intermediate-ways-to-speed-up-windows/.
Hopefully going forwards by having my post titles in the urls not only will this entice more users to click on my links, but hopefully it will improve my search engine listings as engines still score a link based on whether any of the keywords appear in the url.
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Pingback by WordPress Plugins I’m Currently Using | Connected Internet on 26 June 2007:
[...] Dean’s Permalinks Migration v1.0 by Dean Lee: Allowed me to make my urls more user-friendly [...]
Comment by Everton on 30 May 2007:
I’ve had zero problems with this plugin and I’m pretty confident it has helped my google traffic
Comment by Mike on 30 May 2007:
I was just about to start manually rewriting my htaccess file when I remembered I’d seen something on here ages ago about a WP plugin!
I’ve had a look at it and tested it out on one of my development sites. It all looks to work OK but I thought I’d see how you were getting on with it. Any adverse effects in terms of spidering? Has it had a positive impact on your search traffic?
I’d love to hear your feedback after 4 months of using the plugin before installing it.
Pingback by WordPress Plugin: Permalinks Migration - JohnTP.com on 28 February 2007:
[...] found this plugin via Everton’s blog who recently changed his permalinks using the Permalinks Migration plugin from something like [...]
Trackback by Investor Trip on 22 February 2007:
Links from MyBlogLog Community - 02/21/07…
I was searching through my MyBlogLog community, and found some great posts from my community members:
Accept and Recognize Your Mistakes
E-Trade Adds Global Trading Options to their brokerage services
Trade4Cash Monthly Income Update
9 Fallacies of th…
Comment by Everton on 21 February 2007:
yeah - my search engine traffic should go up a bit once Google updates I think.
Comment by Thilak on 21 February 2007:
Ah.. your permalinks look more sweeter now
Pingback by BlogTalks » Blog Archive » Change Your Permalink Structure without Loosing Traffic Or Pagerank on 21 February 2007:
[...] Thanks for the heads up, Ajay and Everton [...]
Comment by Everton on 21 February 2007:
Dunno. BTW you should add Blogtalks and your other sites to my directory as I don’t know how, but it’s starting to get direct traffic, plus I’ve been purchasing links for it so it will have a good PR at the next review.
Comment by Thilak on 21 February 2007:
How come Ajay never told this to me??