Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. /%category%/%postname%/ Permalink structure

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    /%category%/%postname%/ Permalink structure

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    9
    17886
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • UnderRugSwept
      UnderRugSwept last edited by

      Mostly everyone seems to agree that /%category%/%postname%/ is the best blog structure.

      I'm thinking of changing my structure to that because now it's structured by date which is bad. But almost all of my posts are assigned to more than one category. Won't this create duplicate pages?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • UnderRugSwept
        UnderRugSwept @mad2k last edited by

        http://www.stadriemblems.com/

        Thanks!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • mad2k
          mad2k @mad2k last edited by

          Did you find any reason of site declining?

          Send me an url, I will take a look 🙂

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • UnderRugSwept
            UnderRugSwept @mad2k last edited by

            Yes, our positions are gradually declining, and I'm trying everything I can, no matter how seemingly small, until I can figure out why.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • mad2k
              mad2k @UnderRugSwept last edited by

              Hi again 🙂

              I think that depends on what is the position of your site now. If it's good there is no pressure to do changes in other case you can take a risk. In my opinion good structure of content help in SEO an if I were in your situation i would take a risk of change.

              UnderRugSwept mad2k 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • UnderRugSwept
                UnderRugSwept last edited by

                Another question is which would be worse for SEO: leaving it the way it is, categorized by month and date, or changing the whole structure when I have dozens of posts?

                mad2k 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • UnderRugSwept
                  UnderRugSwept @NakulGoyal last edited by

                  Thanks for the input. The reason I'm worried about duplicate pages is because what i temporarily switched everything to category/postname, I could access pages many different ways.

                  category1/postname/page

                  category2/postname/page

                  anothercategory/postname/page

                  Were all the same page. Duplicate content?

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • NakulGoyal
                    NakulGoyal last edited by

                    I agree with Marek. However, there's value in having the Category in there specially if your categories are keyword rich. Don't worry about duplicate pages. One post will only have one default category in the Slug (Most of the times, its the 1st one you selected in Wordpress). I also sometimes like to use /%category%/%postname%.html or /%category%/%postname%.php which gives the effect of pages under a folder, vs folder inside a folder. Just my 2c.

                    UnderRugSwept 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • mad2k
                      mad2k last edited by

                      Hi Marisa,

                      I'm using /%postname% and in my opinion it is a best structure ... but ... in that kind of structure is important to care about slug and to prevent creation of duplicated titles.

                      /the-best-solution  is a good slug

                      //the-best-solution-2  is not a good slug

                      I don't have duplicated pages cos WordPress has mechanism which check the slug in real time when you creating a post.

                      I think that  /%postname% is the most friendly link structure.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • 1 / 1
                      • First post
                        Last post

                      Got a burning SEO question?

                      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                      Start my free trial


                      Browse Questions

                      Explore more categories

                      • Moz Tools

                        Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                      • SEO Tactics

                        Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                      • Community

                        Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                      • Digital Marketing

                        Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                      • Research & Trends

                        Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                      • Support

                        Connect on product support and feature requests.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • Jes-Extender-Australia

                        Htaccess - Redirecting TAG or Category pages

                        Hello Fellow Moz's, We have an issue redirecting some /TAG and /Category pages to inner pages. As an example we use: RedirectMatch 301 /category/Sample-Category(.*) https://OurDomain.com.au/New-Page//$1 That works well. The issue is we have other categories and tags that are named similar to /Sample-Category As an example, if we try to redirect /Sample-Category-1 to /New-Page-1 - it will not work, and redirects to /New-Page I assume this is because /Sample-Category is already being redirected, so anything after /Sample-Category like -1 or -2 or -3 etc, will not be recognized. Anyone know of a workaround?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jes-Extender-Australia
                        0
                      • RawkingOut

                        Best Permalinks for SEO - Custom structure vs Postname

                        Good Morning Moz peeps, I am new to this but intending on starting off right! I have heard a wealth of advice that the "post name" permalink structure is the best one to go with however... i am wondering about a "custom structure" combing the "post name" following the below example structure: Www.professionalwarrior.com/bodybuilding/%postname/ Where "professional" and "bodybuilding" is my focus/theme/keywords of my blog that i want ranked. Thanks a mill, RO

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RawkingOut
                        0
                      • BeckyKey

                        Category Pages & Content

                        Hi Does anyone have any great examples of an ecommerce site which has great content on category pages or product listing pages? Thanks!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey
                        1
                      • ang

                        URL structure change and xml sitemap

                        At the end of April we changed the url structure of most of our pages and 301 redirected the old pages to the new ones. The xml sitemaps were also updated at that point to reflect the new url structure. Since then Google has not indexed the new urls from our xml sitemaps and I am unsure of why. We are at 4 weeks since the change, so I would have thought they would have indexed the pages by now. Any ideas on what I should check to make sure pages are indexed?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ang
                        0
                      • Ask4443523

                        H2 vs. H3 Tags for Category Navigation

                        Hey, all. I have client that uses tags in the navigation for its blog.  For example, tags might appear around "Library," "Recent Posts," etc.  This is handled through their WordPress theme. This seems fairly standard, but I wonder whether tags are semantically appropriate.  Since each blog post is fairly lengthy (about 500-1000 words) with multiple tags, would it be more appropriate to use tags for this menu navigation?  Are we cutting into the effectiveness of our tags by using them for menu navigation? The navigation is certainly an important page element, and it structures content, so it seems that it should use some header tag.  Anyways, your thoughts are greatly appreciated.  I'm a content creator, not an SEO, so this is a bit out of my skillset.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ask4443523
                        0
                      • ShaqD

                        Why is our pagerank is still only 3/10?

                        Hi, Our site https://soundbetter.com has been live for 2 years now, and as of yet we haven't yet been able to get our PageRank above 3/10. We have thousands of unique pages and plenty of original contextual content, we avoid duplicate content best we can, follow google's best practices for site structure, deal with any issues that come up in webmaster tools, have schema.org markup, avoid link spamming, have inbound links from authority sites (though OSE doesn't show most of them for some reason), lots of social shares to our pages and the domain has been owned by us for 12 years. Any thoughts on why we would still have a PR of 3? Thanks for helping

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ShaqD
                        0
                      • 6thirty

                        Should you include domain / brand in Meta Title

                        Hello, I am trying to come up with a strategy for creating meta title information for my eCommerce store. I have read mixed reviews on the examples below. The first includes the company / brand in the meta title and thus is included in SE results. The second does not. Probably not a 'right' answer here so I look forward to answers with rationale... also open to a completely difference strategy all together! 1MR Vortex by BPI Sports - $Company_Name OR 1MR Vortex by BPI Sports - Pre Workout Supplement Thanks!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 6thirty
                        0
                      • James77

                        Posing QU's on Google Variables "aclk", "gclid" "cd", "/aclk" "/search", "/url" etc

                        I've been doing a bit of stats research prompted by read the recent ranking blog http://www.seomoz.org/blog/gettings-rankings-into-ga-using-custom-variables There are a few things that have come up in my research that I'd like to clear up. The below analysis has been done on my "conversions". 1/. What does "/aclk" mean in the Referrer URL? I have noticed a strong correlation between this and "gclid" in the landing page variable. Does it mean "ad click" ?? Although they seem to "closely" correlate they don't exactly, so when I have /aclk in the referrer Url MOSTLY I have gclid in the landing page URL. BUT not always, and the same applies vice versa. It's pretty vital that I know what is the best way to monitor adwords PPC, so what is the best variable to go on? - Currently I am using "gclid", but I have about 25% extra referral URL's with /aclk in that dont have "gclid" in - so am I underestimating my number of PPC conversions? 2/. The use of the variable "cd" is great, but it is not always present. I have noticed that 99% of my google "Referrer URL's" either start with:
                        /aclk   - No cd value
                        /search - No cd value
                        /url - Always contains the cd variable. What do I make of this?? Thanks for the help in advance!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | James77
                        0

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.