If you want to change the Permalink (Post URL) of a published post to moderate its length or to make it more SEO friendly. By reverting the post to draft, it will be done, editing the post and publishing it once more. But still there is problem, that the earlier permalink will show a ‘Page does not exist’ error. In this tutorial we will show how to fix it using redirection option. In this tutorial, we will change the permalink of a post
from
http://blogsnucleus.blogspot.com/2016/10/submit-website-to-search-engines.html
To
http://blogsnucleus.blogspot.com/2016/10/search-engines.html
How to Change permalink
Note: Save the current permalink of your blog post. It will be using this later while setting up a redirect.
To do this, from dashboard >> post, select that post that you want to revert to draft and click the ‘Revert to Draft’ button as shown in the screenshot below.
Now click edit the same post. On the right side bar, under Settings, click Permalink. Click the Automatic Permalink radio button then enter the new permalink and click Done. In our example, the new permalink will be ‘search-engines’.
Now Click Publish button on the top menu to publish the post.
Setting up process to redirect
Now, if you visit the previous post link (http://blogsnucleus.blogspot.com/2016/10/submit-website-to-search-engines.html), you will receive an error saying that the post does not exist. We have to set up a redirect from
http://blogsnucleus.blogspot.com/2016/10/submit-website-to-search-engines.html to
http://blogsnucleus.blogspot.com/2016/10/search-engines.html
Go to settings -> Search Preferences.
Under Errors and Redirection >> Custom Redirects >> click Edit.
In the ‘from’ field enter the previous permalink and in the ‘to’ field, enter the new permalink (excluding the blog URL). In our example, the from and to fields will be
From: /2016/10/submit-website-to-search-engines.html
To: /2016/10/search-engines.html
Now select the ‘Permanent’ check box.
Click Save and Save Changes.
Why need to add redirection
There are two causes why you need add a redirect after changing a permalink. The 1st is to recover user friendliness and the second is to progress SEO friendliness of your site.
After you have circulated the post, you might have shared it to many social networking sites and other people. When you change the permalink, the URL that you have public will be unreachable. This might frustrate the users. They will not difficulty to search for that post on your blog to read it. If such permalink changes happen regularly, then users might stop clicking on your blog or website links altogether.
The 2nd reason is related to SEO (Search Engine Optimization). After posting the blog, you might have gathered links for it by social commenting, sharing, media etc. When the old link gives a 404 error, all the link juice will be lost. When we set up a redirect, the link juice passes from the old page to the page. A part of it might be missing, but we are as a minimum left with something. It is suggested that your conversion the permalinks only when it is undeniably essential.
