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Reader Question: WordPress Permalinks

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I love it when people send in questions to me and for this edition, Brian asks:

If I change from the date-based to just /%postname%/, will my old permalinks convert over to just postname?

The short answer is no. What ends up happening is that, all of the permalinks on your blog will be changed to represent the new configuration. This will cause all links that were created before the change to be broken. Also, any links that have been indexed in Google with the old permalink structure will be invalid and will need to be re indexed. If you really feel convinced to change your permalink structure, I recommend using the Permalinks Migration plugin. This plugin will generate a “301 Redirect” when users or spiders visit your site through old permalinks, and redirect them to the new permalinks of the same post. After that, I recommend using the Broken Link checker plugin to discover links on your site that are producing 404 errors.

If you are just starting out, take a good hard look at how you will be using your blog in the future. This will help you to determine which linking structure works for you. As far as am I concerned, setting up permalinks in WordPress to %postname% is all you need and this helps to keep the link short and sweet. I’ve been told that in order for links to be added into the Google News engine, a link needs to have at least 3-5 numbers within it. I don’t know if that is true or not but I’d rather just stick to postnames.

For more information regarding the configuration of permalinks, please read this post which goes into detail regarding the different ways in which to configure pretty permalinks in WordPress.

Fantastico De Luxe 2.10.4 r24

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The latest and stable release of Fantastico has been released to webhosters. The new version contains the following script updates:

  • phpBB: 3.0.2 -> 3.0.3
  • WordPress: 2.6.3 -> 2.6.5

Be sure to keep an eye out for upgrades to these scripts if you have installed the software via Fantastico.

9 Reasons To Link Out

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Most believe that by continuously linking in, you’ll decrease bounce rates, increase the average amount of time a visitor spends on your site, and increase traffic. While at the surface this may be true, I believe that linking out is twice as good as linking in and here are my 9 reasons why.

Expanding Knowledge – Linking out provides a means for your audience to expand their wealth of knowledge by picking up websites they may not have known about before. This aids in reading content from multiple perspectives. Also, providing links related to whatever niche you are writing about will show readers that you’re an expert in the field and keep up with the latest and greatest for that particular niche. Consider this perceived expertise.

Networking – Linking out when publishing an article generally initiates what are known as Pingbacks or Trackbacks. These little notifications inform a blog owner that someone has linked to one of their articles. I can tell you based on experience that I’ve personally discovered some great sites by checking out my trackback/pingback notifications and it’s also proven to be a great opportunity to network with other blog owners.

Unselfish Feeling – It’s very easy to continuously link in to other articles you have produced on your site but if you do it too much, your readers might think your selfish and have no desire for any one else’s opinions. Linking out takes care of this before it becomes a problem.

Backlinks – This one is based off of the Networking tip I described earlier. If the blog owner approves of your pingback/trackback url to be published, that is one more backlink you have for your blog. Plus, it lets other blog owners know that your site exists which may mean future backlinks.

The Beginning Of Conversations – For those that like to take bits and pieces of other blog posts and formulate opinions or provide their own insight into, linking out to those articles provides your audience a chance to read into the content that ignited your spark. This can sometimes initiate conversations which go into a totally different direction.

Build An Audience – If you continuously link out to great content that your audience finds useful, they will keep coming back for more and will most likely tell their friends. The key is to link out to great, resourceful material on a consistent basis. People love it when their desired subject matter has been filtered out so that only the most interesting or useful content appears before them.

Way To Generate Content – There are only 24 hours in a day and not enough time in life to write about everything you find interesting that comes across your feedreader. Instead of bookmarking it, create a speedlink post which contains numerous links that are of interest to you AND your readers. The post serves as an archive for those links so you can go back to them whenever you need to.

Backup Your Claims – While it is easy to state nonfactual claims all day long, you’re only doing your readers a disservice (and most likely yourself). Instead, back up your claims by linking out to third party sites who agree with your line of thought or who have produced the research that supports your statements.

The SEO Perspective – I’m no SEO expert, but I’ve seen this one debated across the web. The results of a linking out experiment to determine SEO benefits appear different depending on who did the experiment. As a rule of thumb, who cares if you link to your competitor just as long as it benefits your audience. By the way, there are certain cases in which linking to your competitor is seen as a classy move. Be open to those opportunities.

Conclusion:

To sum things up, don’t be afraid to link out, even if you feel the site is a competitor. Linking in general is a natural behaviour on the web and there is no reason why you should keep your audience within a walled garden. Link out, build relationships, get to know people and then realize that linking out is one of the best things about blogging. That next link out could be a blessing in disguise.

strong>If you know of any other reason as to why you should link out, share it in the comments.

Perfcast Episode 14 – David Goes Solo

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While those in the U.S. were celebrating a day of giving thanks, David Peralty was stuck with going solo on the show. However, after listening to the episode, I think David did a great job despite the one or two technical snafus. In this episode, David discussed WordPress Direct and it’s shady way of operating, GawkerMedia cutting back jobs but showing record traffic levels, a small discussion on podcasting and much more. Don’t kid yourself David, you held down the fort quite well!

LENGTH OF EPISODE – 1 Hour

NEXT EPISODE – December 4th, 2008 at 7 P.M. EST

ITUNES – Click here to subscribe to the show via iTunes

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW: PerfcastEpisode14.mp3

LISTEN TO EPISODE 14 OF PERFCAST:

Thesis Gets Black Friday Treatment

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Brian Clark who is one of the developers behind the popular Thesis theme for WordPress has announced that the theme will be available for 20% off for the first 150 people to take advantage of the offer. While checking out, you’ll have to use a special coupon code that will be valid until Friday evening. That code is 20D03977D0.

Thanks to the 20% discount, this is what you can expect to pay for the various licensed versions:

  • $69.60 for Thesis Personal (regularly $87)
  • $131.20 for Thesis Developer (regularly $164)
  • $61.60 for Developer Upgrade (regularly $77)

When Thesis 1.4 arrives, the initial vision for Thesis will be in place. A WordPress-powered site that can look like a “blog” or it can have a “magazine-style” front page that fronts any website. And Chris is working hard to give you custom landing page options that will make you a marketing machine, while making the old-style “blog” look silly.

Thesis is a great looking theme. Copyblogger and Twitip are both examples of this theme in action. Remember that the deal is only good for the first 150 people.

Reader Question: My Technique For Generating Comments

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The following question was sent in by a reader of Performancing:

Could you write a blog post about how to get more people to comment on blog posts?

No problem! Numerous people have asked this question as my personal blog as well as Performancing and everywhere else I write seems to generate comments. I’ll share my technique and explain why I use it and then point you to some articles previous authors of Performancing have written in the past that cover this topic exclusively.

The Beginning

Getting people to comment on your blog post starts at the beginning. This means your post title. Generally, forming your post title into a question is enough for some people to go straight to your comment form, completely bypassing the content simply to answer the question.

The Content

While being an authoritative figure is good in some respects, providing the answers to everyones questions within your content is a great way to deter comments. Unless of course, your readership loves to disagree with you. What I like to do is write my content in an open ended way. I leave room for readers to chime in and to share their thoughts.

The Ending

At the end of every post I write, I do my best to ask a few questions near the end. You may be wondering whats up with asking all of these questions? Each question you ask is a reason to comment. This particular tactic has worked very well for me, especially when the question asks for opinions or thoughts on a particular item within the content.

These three tactics have all worked very well for me. It is very hard for anyone to interact with someone else when there are no questions involved. Questions are usually starting points for conversations.

Other Resources

Over the course of three years, Performancing has covered this topic a few times. Here are some classics from the Archive.

Chris Garret – 10 Tips for Attracting More Comments

Chris McLeod – Getting People to Comment on Your New Blog

Do you have any advice you could give this reader to help him get more comments on his blog?

WordPress 2.6.5 Released 2.6.4 Skipped

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News has come around that WordPress 2.6.5 has been released which is a security focused version. The new version fixes one security problem and three bugs.

The security issue is an XSS exploit discovered by Jeremias Reith that fortunately only affects IP-based virtual servers running on Apache 2.x. If you are interested only in the security fix, copy wp-includes/feed.php and wp-includes/version.php from the 2.6.5 release package.

2.6.5 contains three other small fixes in addition to the XSS fix.

Now you may be wondering why they have decided to call this version 2.6.5 instead of 2.6.4. The reason for 2.6.5 is to avoid confusion with a version of WordPress that had been been going around which pointed users to a fake version of WordPress that was labeled as 2.6.4. Going this route, the WordPress team can officially say that 2.6.4 never existed and thus, you should continue to avoid links or notifications that tell you to upgrade to 2.6.4.

The version is already available for download.

Where To Place That Sidebar

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About 24 hours ago, I published a poll on Performancing asking readers which sidebar configuration they used on their blogs. Although the poll has yet to run its course, the majority of you voted for having one sidebar that is presented on the right hand side of the site.

An article written by Addicott Web ending up being the inspiration for the poll as Addicott takes a closer look and the reasons behind why a sidebar should be placed on the left or right side of your blog.

Sidebar On The Left:

  • Emphasize the content, not the navigation
  • People look for, and even expect, navigation there
  • We read left to write

Sidebar On The Right:

  • Blog sidebars go on the right. Period
  • More SEO Friendly
  • We read left to right

On my personal blog, I use one large sidebar that is approximately 300 pixels in width on the right hand side of the blog. I’m a big fan of the one large sidebar as opposed to the two smaller ones placed next to each other. Also, having the sidebar on the right just feels natural to me rather than having it on the left.

Also, thanks to the Slayers Custom Widgets plugin for WordPress that I reviewed here, you can now use your sidebar more effectively by assigning widgets to appear only on specific content pages. I’m using a similar plugin to configure widgets that display post meta data in the sidebar as a means of cleaning up the content area. Usually, things such as tags, related posts, and comments are displayed within the content. Thanks to the plugin, I can place that information within widgets and only have them appear on the single page view of my template in WordPress.

Conclusion:

So tell me, why do you prefer one sidebar configuration over another? It’s obvious that there is a science involved with one or the other but in my instance, I threw science out the window and picked the side that best resonated with me.