Title: Unique IDs for posts
Last modified: August 18, 2016

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# Unique IDs for posts

 *  [levgartm](https://wordpress.org/support/users/levgartm/)
 * (@levgartm)
 * [18 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/unique-ids-for-posts/)
 * I had some problems with Google Reader, that I asked Google about in their help
   forum, and they told me:
 * What this usually means is that the feed is reusing item IDs. This makes Reader
   think that the new item is actually an update to a previous item, so it goes 
   back and updates that item rather than showing it as new. If you want to avoid
   this problem, you’ll need to make sure every post you ever make in your blog 
   has a unique ID.
 * Anyone out there know how I can make each post have a unique ID to solve the 
   Google Reader problem?

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  [Kafkaesqui](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kafkaesqui/)
 * (@kafkaesqui)
 * [18 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/unique-ids-for-posts/#post-659515)
 * Go back and tell them this is unlikely to be the issue for your blog.
 * What they are referring to is the guid element that each item in a RSS(2) feed
   will contain. WordPress by default inserts the URI (permalink) for the post in
   this field.* In fact it is attached to each post as a record in the posts table
   under the column ‘guid’ (if that’s not clear enough). By any definition, a post’s
   permalink will be an unique identifier.
 * Looking at the source of your site’s RSS2 feed, I see exactly what I expect to,
   which is the _unique_ permalink to each post in each guid element.
 * * Technically the guid can be defined as an url (the guid attribute for this 
   is isPermaLink), though WordPress sets this to false. In any case, it has nothing
   to do for how a syndication reader interprets the ‘uniqueness’ of what is used
   in the field.
 *  [Ravi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ravidreams/)
 * (@ravidreams)
 * [17 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/unique-ids-for-posts/#post-659628)
 * i am having the same problem. google reader shows some of my posts written in
   may this year 2 be written in last year.
 * i see in my feed at [http://blog.ravidreams.net/feed/](http://blog.ravidreams.net/feed/)
   that the guid is the post id not the permalink. i had previously imported posts
   when i moved server and that resulted in change in post ids and i had 2 delete
   a few. is it possible that some of the old post ids r used and that’s y they 
   r shown as old posts? how to change this post id guid into the actual pretty 
   permalink?
 * i am confused since igoogle, firefox live bookmarks can all update correctly 
   and only bloglines, google reader having a problem. is this really not a blog
   feed problem?
 * Thanks

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Unique IDs for posts’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 2 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [Ravi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ravidreams/)
 * Last activity: [17 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/unique-ids-for-posts/#post-659628)
 * Status: not resolved

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