Is there a way of changing the Permalink without getting the 404 Error?

[MissVe]

Hi, I am new to this all..

Is there a way of changing the permalink for example from:

domain/content/ to domain/profile/ without receiving the 404 error message. It's just that since my website has been developed, some pages and their content have changed but the permalink still shows the name of the old page which may be confusing.

Ps. Please use most simple language for explanations as I am really new to it.

Thank you!

Ve

[ThompsonPaul]

Wow - looks like folks kinda missed the part where you asked to keep it simple, Ve

Because you site is built using WordPress software, it's actually simple and straightforward to do what you're asking. All it requires is the installation of a small plugin called "Redirection" to your website to automatically handle what needs to be done anytime you wish to change a page or post's permalink. (just to be sure - this is all assuming you're talking about changing the permalink right on the edit page for a post, not changing the permalink structure on the settings page for your whole blog)

In case you haven't installed plugins before, here's the step-by-step process. Don't be intimidated - it only looks long because I've made every step it's own bullet point for clarity

• log into your WordPress as if you were going to create a new post, but instead, look for the button called Plugins on the left sidebar
• hover your cursor over the Plugins button, and click on the Add New link that shows up
• on the new page, type Redirection into the search box and click the Search Plugins button beside it
• the plugin you want should be right at the top of the list - called Redirection (no other words) and in the description you'll see it is written by John Godley
• click the link for Install Now located under the name of the plugin
• you'll be taken to a page that tells you it's installing the plugin. (If WordPress gives you empty boxes to fill ion this new page, post back here. Depending on your site's configuration, sometimes WordPress needs a little help at this point.)
• Once WordPress has done it's thing, you should see a successful install notification on that page.
• click on the Activate Plugin link that now appears at the bottom of the "successfully installed" page you're on
• WordPress will again do it's thing and then take you to the page listing all your installed plugins. The plugin is now installed and activated!
• now go the post or page you want to change, and edit its permalink, republishing the post when you're done.
• go to your live site and click on one of the links to the page you just changed, to confirm that you end up on the correct new page at it's new address
• DONE! Go have a glass of wine (or other celebratory beverage.)

The background (if you want to know the "Why" as well as the "how")
When you change the permalink of a page in WordPress, you are changing its actual web address (also know as its URL). Even though you know you've done this, the rest of the web (and even your own website) don't know about the change so they're still looking for that page at it's old address.

When your site's server gets a request to display that page, it can't find it so it sends back a 404 error, which basically says "there's no page at the address you're asking for and I have no idea where it might be".

To fix this, you need to teach the server where it should send everybody who's looking for the old address. You do this by writing what's called a 301 Redirect into the server so that when it gets a request for that old address, it can say "there's no page at that old address anymore - it's now moved permanently to this new address and I'm going to automatically send you there."

This all happens instantaneously in the background so the visitor never sees it - they just end up on the new address. In addition, this redirect tells the search engines to give the ranking value of the old address to the new address so it doesn't look like a brand new page starting from scratch. (helps keep your page showing up well in the search results)

The Redirection plugin automatically notices whenever you change the permalink of a page and automatically writes the code necessary to give the server the 301 redirect it needs, instead of you having to muck about with all the coding the other answers were talking about. YAY for WordPress! (Still, best to change the permalinks as seldom as possible though)

The method I gave you installs the plugin directly from the WordPress parent site , meaning they've checked and approved it so you know it's safe. The plugin can also do many other powerful things, but those are for another post

Do let me know if anything's not clearly-enough explained, or if you run into any problems

Good luck, and let us know how it goes!

Paul

[mememax]

Hi Ve, just as a further clarification, remember that when you use the 301 redirection you're passing that value to the new page although you lose something of that value (further reading here) that's why you should schoose wisely whenever perform a redirect or not.

In the case you need to do that consider that you won't be starting from 0 but not even from the same point you were with the other page which was ranking.

[MissVe]

Thank you!

I didn't think there was sooo much work involved. I will look into it. Cause at the moment my site is ranking not badly, so making changes to my URL would mean losing those ranking positions and starting from new. It may be worth long term doing anyway, so I just have to see.

Thank you!

Ve

[TextMarketing]

MissVe,

you can change your permalinks. You just need to set up 301 redirects from the old permalinks to the new. This not only forwards users to the new location but tells google that you've moved the page as well. This is the best way to handle your situation!

Hope that helps!

[mememax]

Hi Ve. A 404 is generated when someone reach a page which doesn't exist, so to have someone reaching such a page you need to give them a path to it. There may be two different paths:

• internal. You can remove this internal path changing all the links pointing to the old url to the new one.
• external. This may be trickier. There may be:

1. external sites pointing with links to the old page. In this case you need to think if it's really worth to change the url. If it is, get in touch with those websites and ask them to change the link.
2. Google having indexed that page and make it rank. That cannot be changed by YOU.

So make all the internal and external possible fixes

change your sitemap and submit that to google webmaster tools

and then you'll need to modify your htaccess (if your server is driven by apache, which 90% normally do) and create a rule which redirects from the old page to the new one. In that way even if the external site doesn't change the old link the user won't receive a 404 but will be redirected to the new page, and google will drop the old url (in a week or so it depends on the crawling rate) and then index instead the new one.

For the htaccess rule if you're not experienced with that kind of file leave that to your it guys, because a wrong comma there, may brake the whole site.

Hope this is clear