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Permalinks are the permanent URLs to your individual weblog posts, as well as categories and other lists of weblog postings. A permalink is what another weblogger will use to link to your article (or section), or how you might send a link to your story in an e-mail message. The URL to each post should be permanent, and never change — hence permalink.
There are three basic types of WordPress permalinks:
Using mod_rewrite or lighttpd you can produce much nicer permalinks (see Pretty Permalinks). There are many different formats, but the most common, and most versatile looks like
http://example.com/2012/post-name/
or
http://example.com/2012/12/30/post-name
Pretty permalinks are available under:
PATHINFO permalinks look very much like mod_rewrite permalinks but for one exception: they have /index.php inserted before them, like so:
http://example.com/index.php/yyyy/mm/dd/post-name/
Otherwise, they are the same as the "pretty" mod_rewrite permalinks, and are similarly flexible. Anything that mod_rewrite permalinks can do, PATHINFO permalinks can do, with the help of that /index.php part.
There is a helpful plugin that displays the type of permalinks being used and detailed information on the internal rewrite rules used by WordPress.
In the Settings → Permalinks panel (Options → Permalinks before WordPress 2.5), you can choose one of the "common" structures or enter your own in the "Custom structure" field using the structure tags.
Please note: You never, ever put your site url in the permalinks slot. You must use one of the structure tags, or a combination of tags only.
To activate PATHINFO permalinks, start your permalink structure with index.php/.
Please note:
You never, ever put your site url in the permalinks slot. You must use one of the structure tags, or a combination of tags only.
You can use these tags to customize your "Pretty" or "Almost Pretty" permalinks. A few hints:
The Category base and Tag base are prefixes used in URLs for category and tag archives, which look like this:
example.net/wp/category_base/category_name example.net/wp/tag_base/tag_name
The default values for these are category and tag. You can change them, but you can't remove them from the URLs altogether.
Custom permalinks work on most systems without any problems, but there are still some conditions where problems occur.
When you assign multiple categories to a post, only one can show up in the permalink. This will be the lowest numbered category (see Manage Categories). The post will still be accessible through all the categories as normal.
Requirements:
AllowOverride FileInfo
or AllowOverride All
) When you create or update a "pretty" permalink structure, WordPress will generate rewrite rules and attempt to insert them into the proper .htaccess file. If it can't, it will say something like You should update your .htaccess now and print out the rules for you to copy and paste into the file (put them at the end).
In WordPress 2.0+ versions, you'll probably need to do this only once, because WordPress does the rewriting internally. If you ever move your WordPress home directory (Site address), you'll need to repeat this step.
WordPress will play nice with an existing .htaccess and will not delete any existing RewriteRules or other directives. If you have other mod_rewrite rules, put yours before WordPress's.
WordPress's index.php and .htaccess files should be together in the directory indicated by the Site address (URL) setting on your General Options page. Since the name of the file begins with a dot, the file may not be visible through an FTP client unless you change the preferences of the FTP tool to show all files, including the hidden files. Some hosts (e.g. Godaddy) may not show or allow you to edit .htaccess if you install WordPress through the Godaddy Hosting Connection installation.
If you do not already have a .htaccess file, create one. If you have shell or ssh access to the server, a simple touch .htaccess
command will create the file. If you are using FTP to transfer files, create a file on your local computer, call it 1.htaccess, upload it to the root of your WordPress folder, and then rename it to .htaccess.
You can edit the .htaccess file by FTP, shell, or (possibly) your host's control panel.
The following permalink rewrite code should be included in your .htaccess file (since WordPress 3.0):
# BEGIN WordPress <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [L] </IfModule> # END WordPress
If your .htaccess file contains errors that bring down your site ("Internal Server Error (500)"), you will need to use FTP or your host's control panel to delete the rogue .htaccess file.
If WordPress can't update your .htaccess file automatically, it will tell you something like If your .htaccess file were writable, we could do this automatically, but it isn’t… near the bottom of the Settings → Permalinks panel.
If you want to let WordPress do this, you'll need to give WordPress write access to the .htaccess file. The exact permissions necessary depend on your server setup. Try adding write permissions for the owner, then group, then world, testing after each change; once WordPress has edited the file successfully, don't add any further write permissions.
After applying the permalinks, you should change the permissions to something stronger like 660 or 644 to prevent others on the server from potentially having access to it.
"Pretty" permalinks usually require mod_rewrite, and IIS (common on Windows servers) does not support mod_rewrite. (If you are using Apache 2.0.54, on Windows, mod_rewrite may work, provided it is enabled in apache\conf\httpd.conf.)
If you are using IIS 7 and have admin rights on your server, you can use Microsoft's URL Rewrite Module instead. Though not completely compatible with mod_rewrite, it does support WordPress's pretty permalinks. Once installed, open the web.config file in the WordPress folder and add the following rule to the system.webServer element
<rewrite> <rules> <rule name="Main Rule" stopProcessing="true"> <match url=".*" /> <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll"> <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" /> <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" /> </conditions> <action type="Rewrite" url="index.php/{R:0}" /> </rule> </rules> </rewrite>
There's a full installation guide on the IIS site. The module is available for x64 and x86 systems.
If this isn't an option, you can try PATHINFO permalinks; put index.php/ at the start of your custom permalink structure:
/index.php/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/
This option may not always work, especially in cases of WordPress running on IIS 6. To make this option work on IIS, add these 2 lines to a php.ini file and store that file in your webroot :
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1 cgi.force_redirect = 0
Another solution exists using IIS' custom 404 redirects. It requires that your web host allows you to add a custom 404 redirect, but it doesn't require you to install any 3rd party mod_rewrite software and it also doesn't require that your permalink structure begin with /index.php/.
If your installation of WordPress does not generate a .htaccess file or if it does not write the new rules onto your existing .htaccess file then there are a couple reasons that could be causing this. Work step by step and continue to the next step only if the previous step does not work.
$is_apache = strstr($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'], 'Apache') ? 1 : 0;and replace it with
// $is_apache = strstr($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'], 'Apache') ? 1 : 0;
// $is_apache = strstr($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'], 'Apache') ? 1 : 0;and type in
$is_apache = 1;
A note about Microsoft Frontpage: many servers (shared and dedicated) maintained and built by various hosting companies come with mod_frontpage compiled with the apache build, and in many cases with the Frontpage Server Extensions installed, on each virtual server. This is more common than not, many/most binary distributions used in the server build process at most hosting companies these days include both mod_fronpage and the server extensions. Even if you're not using Frontpage, because of the way that the extensions interact with apache (and the httpd.conf file) you'll likely get something like a 500 error or blank white page when trying to view your WP install (although the admin panel may operate correctly) simply because extensions/mod_frontpage exist on your server.
WordPress will operate correctly with the Frontpage Extensions installed, however permalinks will not function at all and ANY change to the permalinks section from the WordPress admin interface will cause corruption of the Frontpage server extensions due to the addition of the mod_rewrite rules to the .htaccess file. There is however now a fix for this situation.
Frontpage Extensions Fix: If you don't care about permalinks and just want to make the MS Frontpage server extensions work again, simply edit your .htaccess file and remove the WordPress section with the rewrite rules.
To Use Permalinks: If you don't care about Frontpage(but your hosting company has the extensions installed)
You will need to remove (or have your hosting company do so) the MS Frontpage server extensions, or simply edit the .htaccess file to removed all of the Frontpage Lines, leaving only the WordPress mod_rewrite code.
Finally, A solution.
There have been a number of threads on this issue in the support forums, and until now, no solution to the problem.
Normally, on a Unix server with the Microsoft FrontPage Server extensions installed WordPress works just fine and you are able to edit and publish pages (with Microsoft FrontPage) — until — you make a change to the permalinks (for example to the date based kind that I like /2005/04/etc). I often suggest that type of URI to folks asking about permalinks etc, as that is the method recommended by the w3c (see http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI ).
Now, the problem is that FrontPage uses the .htaccess file (which the WordPress mod_rewrite rules must access) for its "publishing" and "web authoring" configuration. As soon as the WordPress mod_rewrite code is added to the file, two things happen — the permalinks don't work and the Frontpage Server extensions become corrupt.
I have tried countless ways to get around this, including trying to use rewrite rules that "ignore" the %{HTTP_USERAGENT)% used by FrontPage, to using a second AccessFilename .wpaccess to the httpd.conf file, and a host of other things, and nothing worked to allow use of FrontPage and management and use of permalinks in WordPress at the same time.
The solution is actually simple, and I figured it out by accident.
If you are using, or wish to use FrontPage (or if your hosting package is pre-configured that way) along with WordPress, you'll need to take the following simple steps on your server or have your hosting company do them for you.
Microsoft FrontPage creates the following directory
_vti_binNested within that it creates both
_vti_admand
_vti_aut
In addition to in your site (or WordPress) root folder in all of those directories you will find additional .htaccess files.
In all three of these directories AND in the root directory, at the top of ALL of the .htaccess files you simply need to add one line:
Options +FollowSymlinks
There may or may not already be a line in each like
Options None
Edit and save each .htaccess file and you're done. Now everything works perfectly, including FrontPage, AND the permalinks of your choosing.
When using extra long permalinks in email and posting in comments and chats, some long permalinks are "chopped off" or only the first section is actually recognized as a link and the end seen as text. Here is an example.
Can result in:
To click on the lower link, the user would get a 404 Page Not Found Error. If you have a tendency to use very long permalink post titles, take these steps to prevent this problem.
1. Check that you are indeed using Permalinks.
2. Edit your .htaccess file and add the following:
RewriteRule ^post/([0-9]+)?/?([0-9]+)?/?$ /index.php?p=$1&page=$2 [QSA]
3. Test it. Find a post's ID number and type the following (with your information) in your browser and you should be redirected to your post:
http://yourdomain.example.com/post/(the ID #)
It is also worth noting that most email software will not cut off URLs that have been delineated with angle-brackets (< and >), so when pasting URLs into emails, you should write them as so:
Additionally, some decent email clients offer a "preformat" option when composing plain-text emails. Using the "preformat" option when pasting links will force the email client not to insert linebreaks inside the links.
If your .htaccess file is being generated correctly, but Permalinks still do not function, the following might be a problem. If problems persist, post a note in the WordPress Forum's How To section.
<Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All </Directory>
You may also have to enable the AllowOverride directive in your DocumentRoot:
<Directory /var/www/html> # ... other directives... AllowOverride All </Directory>
http://www.example.com/page/2/ http://www.example.name/category/categoryname/page/2/ http://www.example/year/month/day/page/2/ http://www.example/year/month/page/2/
If these steps do not work, search for your problem in the Codex, Troubleshooting, or in the Support Forum. As a last resort, file a bug report.
Note that even though one might never make more than one posting a day, and thus wishes to use e.g., %year%%monthnum%%day%, links so generated will however be interpreted as the archive of all posts for that day. One needs at least %year%%monthnum%%day%%hour% to target an individual post.
A way to check if the blog has a permalink structure is:
<?php if ( get_option('permalink_structure') ) { echo 'permalinks enabled'; } ?>