Support » Fixing WordPress » How to control which category is shown in URL

  • In the manual for categories it says that the lowest numbered category is shown in the URL. WHat does “lowest numbered” refer to? The one with the lowest amount of posts attached to it or? It is apparently not the one first shown in the edit show of categories for the post. THe one shown in my URL for a post is the second one, not the first. Besides they are not numbered. Its just a list separated with commas.

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
  • WHat does “lowest numbered” refer to?

    The id number of the category. Generally speaking, that means that the oldest categories are listed first.

    Thread Starter dibul

    (@dibul)

    Also does anyone know if the url with the blog shown elsewhere than the home page (the home page being static, is in hierachy. Meaning if the blog is to find at mydomain.com/blog and a category of posts is categoryA and a post is postA then the url for the postA is: mydomain.com/categoryA/postA

    In the breadcrumbs however the /blog/ part is still shown. DOes this imply that to the Search engines categoryA is below BLog in the hierachy despite BLog doesn’t show in the URL?

    Thread Starter dibul

    (@dibul)

    Ok, but I can’t seem to dfind that ID number anywhere

    Thread Starter dibul

    (@dibul)

    txs, great. Would you recommend me to only use one category for each post since I’d like to control which one shows in the URL. Or is is not better to have more categories since people have different preferences with words? I don’t know how to control it since when I create a category I didn’t think it should be created before others to be shown.

    Would you recommend me to only use one category for each post

    No. And I’d certainly try to stop anyone creating a unique category for each post. That way lies madness and a complete breakdown of any potential usefulness that categories should have.

    You should really be using the category name in your custom permalink structure full stop. See:
    http://wordpress.org/support/topic/423072
    http://ottopress.com/2010/category-in-permalinks-considered-harmful/

    Thread Starter dibul

    (@dibul)

    WOuld you suggest me to put in the /%year%/ and delete the /%category%/ part of the permalink structure then?

    Its a hard topic because I see the problem with overload of database queries but on the other hand people might filter of ones articles for date reasons though they might be timeless/classical.

    I had %year% before but thought the category would do good in terms of SEO but then why not just put a keyword in the posttitle which is in the URL.
    Should category go out or is %year%/%category%/%post_title%/ ok?

    Thread Starter dibul

    (@dibul)

    Otto says that the category in the URL doesn’t matter. I don’t see why not. WHy wouldn’t it have an importance in terms of being searchable (the category keywords)?

    Otto says that the category in the URL doesn’t matter.

    In WP 3.2.1 or below, it matters.

    people might filter of ones articles for date reasons though they might be timeless/classical.

    So use the post id in your permalink structure. All you need is a structure that starts with a numeric.

    Thread Starter dibul

    (@dibul)

    Well, perhaps it gives more flexibility for the single posts to focus on different keywords. If the category is there, the search engines might look for consistency between the URL category KW’s and the emphasized KW’s in the post. If the KW’s of the category are missing then there is some discrepancy I guess, so it would be better in that case to just have the domain name (which perhaps is more generic and cover the theme) mixed with the kw’s in the title. But again who knows. We just have to try I guess.

    Thread Starter dibul

    (@dibul)

    In my case I think it might be of use to use the category in the url since my domain keyword is very broad and the category could help making it more niche /specific. WOuldn’t you agre?

    For the same reason I also thought that creating a subfolder for my blog and having a static home page would allow me to put my kw’s for the blog, since they are not in the domain name.

    Anyway as said in another post here, it seems my blog is getting only 5 % of the traffic of the static hoe page and the sitemap says 100 %priority for the static home page and 80% for the blog page.

    I thought that the blog would still have the higher priority since that is where the index file goes right?

    WOuldn’t you agre?

    Sorry but I wouldn’t. For my own sites, I always use the date based permalink structures and yet I always get really good SERP listings (which can be really annoying when you own a site about WP and you’re trying to research some new code and your own site keeps popping up on Google).

    To be honest, I think you’re over-thinking the urls when your real focus should on keyword rich content with good heading structure.

    Thread Starter dibul

    (@dibul)

    Thanks for the help. Yes to have too many pages in the SERP must be a luxury problem 🙂

    I decided to put back the YEAR part in the permalink structure. I think its about short URLs because if too long then they won’t be read. ANyway I don’t use www so it probably balances with the extra four digits of the year. I also see in the SERP that the year is replaced with /../ so probably there is an algorithm prioritizing it down.

    I cancelled the category from the URL as well. Then I don’t have to worry about which category is selected automatically.

    Perhaps the distinction of categories and thus recognition of KW in the URL is already performed prior to seeing the visible url so to have it shown won’t matter what regards SE’s. I am not sure about that.

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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