Pretty vs. Ugly Permalinks

permalinks are the permanent urls to your individual weblog posts, as well as categories and other lists of weblog postings. for example, the permalink for this post is http://www.ericstownsend.com/2009/11/03/pretty-vs-ugly-permalink. because others may link to my post, the url to this article shouldn’t change. whether the permalink is pretty or ugly has to do with two things – aesthetics and searchability. per the former, what would you rather see – a link structure like the above or something with /index.php?p=423 at the end? from a search engine standpoint, permalinks provide additional “pull” to your website. those words between the dashes in a “pretty” permalink are ready to respond directly to google and yahoo keyword searches. don’t believe me? conduct a search and watch the permalinks get highlighted in the top-ranked sites! this is but one very small piece to the larger puzzle of how to search engine optimize your website investment.