How to Rank Higher in Google – Creating Customized Permalinks in Blogger
What are Permalinks?
Permalinks tell a lot about the page it points to. One can read out the article name in the status bar of the browser when hovering over the permalink (by the way, permalinks are the permanent links to every post page which usually contains the title of the post). Search engines use permalinks to categorize the posts. Browsers use permalinks to navigate to remote pages.
How are they created …
Permalinks are generated automatically by your Blogging platform based on the Title of the post.
… in WordPress?
WordPress uses the whole of the title with white spaces replaced by ” – ” (hyphen) as its permalink. For instance the permalink of this post reads http://themelib.com/2009/01/how-to-rank-higher-in-google-creating-customized-permalinks-in-blogger.
WordPress also lets you edit the permalink and make it read the way we like. This feature is extremely useful when you give fancy titles to your post. Such titles which are not self explanatory does not give any idea to a search bot regarding the content of the post. In WordPress this can be edited so that, what the user reads and what the Search bot reads can be different.
… in Blogger?
Unfortunately, Blogger users are left with no option, but to accept the permalink automatically awarded to them. There is no option to customize permalinks. Blogger just takes the first few characters of the title (somewhere between 35 and 40) and makes a permalink which might be incomplete at times. For a post with the title, “The Advantages and Disadvantages of using a customized permalink every time”, the permalink will be something like http://themelib.com/2008/10/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of/
What should I do?
Luckily we have come up with an idea to customize the permalink. The method is called “Publish and Republish method”. This is illustrated using the above example (“The advantages and disadvantages of using a customized permalink every time”)
- Since Blogger permits only 35 to 40 characters in its permalink, find a short title for the post. For instance, ‘Analysis of Customized Permalinks’ can be a short title for the same post.
- Publish the post with this short title. Now the permalink will read http://themelib.com/2008/10/analysis-of-customized-permalinks/
- Blogger does not change its permalink even if we change the title of the post in future. We exploit this limitation of Blogger here. Edit the post (Manage posts -> Edit) and change the title to ‘The Advantages and Disadvantages of using a customized permalink every time’. Now the permalink will remain same, but the post title will read the new way.
Conclusion
This trick is useful when you decide to use stylish titles. It can also be used to remove the unnecessary details from the permalink and project the necessary ones. A concise permalink is one tip for SEO (Search engine optimization).
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Will it do more harm than good for SEO if the permalink and the title are not the same? I guess it’s okay as long as my keyword is phrased exactly the same in the permalink and in the title.
I think it does not make any difference. As long as the keyword is used in the permalinks is sufficient.
Good tips nhc, i’ll try this one! Thanks.
What a great information on this Permalinks… I was looking for this…
thanks for this tip. I notice some time ago the title of my post in google search. it is shorter than the original title of post. I remember this thing when i publish a new post. thanks again..
This advice is invaluable for me. You have made it so simple. Thank you.
Thats a great tip!
Thanks a lot
This is hugely important, especially for SEO. Thanks for the post. I don’t think many people really knew how to make this change or how important it is.
This is true. I would think that they would have done this already. Especially being own by Google. They usually make things really simple.
What a great tip… Thanks for telling us regarding this perma links. I usually use blogger.com and it will definitely help me in getting higher rankings using your valuable tip..
I have edited my permalinks from page numbers to your type. It is better to see permalinks with year, months and topic in it compared to only page numbers.
It will also help you get search engine ranking and thus free targeted traffic.
One thing that I never bothered to really research has been permalinks. I knew what good ones looked like, and just rolled with that. Thanks for filling in a few blank spots for me.
I enjoy your articles, cheers!
I did’t suspect it was so important, now I know it .Thank you.
I m blogger user..And unfortunately the permalinks feature is not there..
But I have started using that “Publish and Republish method” just few days back about which you have mentioned in your article.
It’s looks to be gr8.
What do you mean the permalinks are not there? It is an option under your Blogger settings. Under Archiving, you should set Enable Post Pages to “Yes”
It is the first step for SEO, but not help you rank better. It’s just a must-have type configuration
If it is the first step in SEO (search engine optimization) then it will help your ranking, especially with long tail phrases. Because that is what SEO means.
And it’s not a must have configuration because if it was then Blogger would have made it the right way, plus it wouldn’t be the default for WordPress either.
A very brilliant idea, I have learned an invaluable lesson again from you!
thanks for the great post! wonderful info for a newbie like myself
nice trick to work on blogger platform, even cool. wordpress here come the competition.
Wow these is very usefeul…I didn’t know about this till now.
Now,I have a question for you NHC(sorry if it’s a little bit off topic), Which is a better platform Blogger or WordPress. I am facing a dilemma if I should transfer my last blog hosted at blogger to wordpress in my own hosting.
Blogger is easier and is integrated (owned) by Google. But WordPress seems to have more flexibility and has more features.
Well, the blogging platforms war between WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, Drupal … in the blogosphere seem can’t be stopped.
In my opinion, choosing a blogging platform depends on the most important question: “What do you want to do?”
“In my opinion, choosing a blogging platform depends on the most important question: “What do you want to do?””
What I want to do is get higher page rank
With higher page rank, I will generate higher income with my blogs.
So is wordpress better for the SEO of blogs?
I recommend WordPress
I recommend WordPress for SEO purposes too….had a chat with a friend who is a Drupal fundi and he says Drupal is best for social media apps….I know nothing about Drupal, so what do you guys think?
If you’re going to host it on your own site then WordPress. There are so many plugins that will help you to automate task and will help you to rank well…like “All in one Seo pack”.
But if you are going to leave it on their domain (Blogger or WordPress) then go with Blogger. They are owned by Google and have a tendency to find them selves ranked well. lol
But with WordPress, I find a lot more help with my hosting and with updates and fixes with fantastico.
Thanks guys – you are all awesome for helping me answer my doubts. I decided to bring my other blog http://www.mommawannabe.com to wordpress since I do have my own hosting.
Having a well structured permalink is often overlooked.
I am not new to blogger but i just knew this fact. When i was just wandering what went wrong when i noticed the full link of one of my posts i was worried , coz i knew this for the first time but ya your site made me pretty clear and a good solution too which i have applied many times.
Great tips it really helped me to increase my ranking in google. Thanks a lot.
Your lessons were very useful,Now I have got some experience in ranking and that is really great.
thank a lot .
Thanks you for the fantastic article….
I learned a lot from this site about blogging
Thanks for the info. I will spend some time on modifying those permalinks in wordpress. I hope it helps.
My vast wordpress experience tell me, to use the .html extention to all my blog posts. Google likes the .html extention
Thats a simple tip but very effective.thanks
Great post!
Nice post, full of useful information that really works.
Time and again I have been really very lucky to read some very useful stuff over here. Really feeling obliged