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What Is A Post Slug?

April 10th, 2008

I have a missing blog post somewhere. Could’ve sworn I wrote about this before in the past but can’t find it in the archive? Crazy. Oh well, it’s a good excuse to post to the blog :)

What in the world is a Post Slug? Awfully funny name that makes me think of slimy mollusks.

Post slug is a feature in WordPress that allows you to change the URL of your blog entries. But before we go further, I need to back up a bit. You see, if you have configured your WordPress blog to use your post title as part of your URL, this is what your URL will look like.

http://myblog.com/my-post-title

Sometimes, you have a funny or long post title, making an awfully awkward URL like this:

http://myblog.com/my-post-title-is-insanely-long-dont-you-think-its-ridiculous

Using Post Slug, you can shorten that or throw in a keyword or two to help your SEO efforts. So what you do is enter the following into the Post Slug area found in your post page. It’s on the right if you are using WordPress 2.3 and under
Post slug 2.3

On WordPress 2.5 and above it’s right under the Post Title
Post slug 2.5

Now, save the post and your URL will be a nice, neat

http://myblog.com/no-more-long-urls

Pretty cool huh?

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10 Comments to “What Is A Post Slug?”

  1. Annette Says:
    April 10th, 2008 at 5:32 pm

    Simple and to the point! Thanks so much Lynette!

  2. Myrna Says:
    April 10th, 2008 at 5:41 pm

    It’s very very cool not just pretty cool :) So here’s a little problem. You can go back and change posts that you have already done in the past.

    By the way, the date is usually part of the title on the permalink. What do you think about the date as part of the title?

    Another post that I love.

  3. Myrna Says:
    April 10th, 2008 at 5:43 pm

    oops sorry, I meant to write you can NOT go back and change the slug once you have already published post.
    I tried and google can’t find it.

  4. Jack Says:
    April 10th, 2008 at 9:13 pm

    Thanks Lynette,
    I have used WordPress for a long time, but never really knew what the Post Slug was.

    Thanks
    Jack

  5. Elizabeth Ashe Says:
    April 11th, 2008 at 9:48 am

    That is so cool Lynette I always wondered about that.

  6. Lynette Says:
    April 11th, 2008 at 12:09 pm

    @Annette & @Jack: you’re welcome.

    @Myrna: You can change the slug once it is published BUT keep in mind people or search engines referring to your old URL will get a 404 page not found error. So it is not wise to do this on old posts.

    As for dates in the URL, I used to have them. Here’s a post about dates in URL I made a few months ago.

  7. Marie Says:
    April 12th, 2008 at 8:24 pm

    Awesome - I always wondered what that Post Slug was about! Thanks for explaining. :)

  8. Alice Says:
    April 14th, 2008 at 1:22 am

    I just recently noticed the Post Slug hidden away and it sure comes in handy. My URLs were so long for emails, posting to Twitter, etc. This keeps me from having to redirect every link first.

  9. Stephanie Says:
    June 7th, 2008 at 12:23 am

    Wow, this is great! I just started blogging on WP so this tip is really helpful for someone like me. Thanks again!

  10. Lynette Says:
    June 11th, 2008 at 10:13 am

    Glad it helps Stephanie