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Redirect Tool for Changing WordPress Permalink Structure

Permalink Redirection Tool

Searching for the best way to change your permalink structure without sacrificing performance and losing traffic? If you don’t know how to write code for your htaccess file then you need a tool which does the job properly.

Joost de Valk of Yoast has created a new tool which creates the correct code for redirecting your old permalink structure to /%postname%/

Redirection Generator Tool by Yoast

The redirect tool will ONLY redirect your old permalink structure to /%postname%/ so if you wanted a different structure, don’t use this tool.

Use this tool to generate redirects from your old permalink structure to the /%postname%/ permalink structure.

  1. Enter the URL of your site
  2. If you have WordPress installed in a sub directory, enter the name of the subfolder in the correct field.
  3. Select or enter your old Permalink structure and click the Generate Redirect button
  4. On the next page you’ll see the code has been generated for copying and pasting into the top of your .htaccess file
Redirect Code
In some cases you’ll find there’s no need to add any code when changing permalinks as WordPress will take care of that for you.

I personally use /%category%/%postname%/ which prior to WordPress 3.3 can effect performance if you don’t have caching setup correctly, however the release of WordPress 3.3 has now solved this problem.

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Comments

  1. I tested the tool and it will not work if you current structure is /%category%/%postname%/.

    If your current structure is /%category%/%postname%/ then after redirect to /%postname%/ all the Tags will return 404 NOT FOUND.

    Can you give some suggestion to fix it? Thanks.

  2. Hello Brad,

    I see the tool will ONLY redirect your old permalink structure to /%postname%/
    But how about if I wanted to redirect to /%category%/%postname%/
    Any idea how to do that.

    Thanks

      • Hi Adrian and Brad,

        I would like to do the same as Adrian, as I want the category of the post to show in the link (it helps give more information in the link) e.g. instead of just

        it would be

        which is more information without doing more work

        Thanks,
        Jen

          • Hi Brad,

            Yes, I want to use /%category%/%postname%/

            I got the redirect tool to redirect to /%postname%/
RedirectMatch 301 ^/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/(.*)$ <a href="http://example.com/$3" rel="nofollow ugc">http://example.com/$3</a>

            But I don’t know what the redirect code is to redirect to /%category%/%postname%/

            Thanks

          • The tool enables you to add your custom structure before generating the code for your .htacess file which in this case is:

            /%category%/%postname%/

            Add the following redirect to the the top of your .htaccess file:

            Replace example.com with your domain.

  3. HELLO Brad,
    I followed the instructions and these worked well,
    but only HOME PAGE OF MY SITE IS Returning 404 error after this . it redirect to iknowc.in/index
    PLEASE HELP ME.

    • Understand however not sure how to help with this as its externally generated code and not my own.

      Does Yoast offer support for his product?

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