[wp-hackers] Permalink Structure - Performance vs. SEO

[Nicky Hajal]

Are there any benchmarks for the real-world impact of using %postname%?

Thanks!
-Nicky
---
Challenge is the Opportunity for Greatness


On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 7:00 PM, Lynne Pope <lynne.pope at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 3:01 AM, Eric Mann <eric at eam.me> wrote:
>
> >
> > 1) Please try to keep in mind (occasionally at least) that some of us
> > > WP as a CMS for content that is not time sensitive. And , in fact the
> > > inclusion of year/month is misleading or confusing. So date is not
> > > *always* a good thing to make prominent. In these cases post id would
> > > be a better fit.
> >
> >
> > Yes, this is a dilemma to be sure.  But if your content is truly
> evergreen
> > (the inclusion of a year/month is misleading), then should you really be
> > publishing it as a post?  Evergreen content is better suited to pages in
> > the
> > WP system.  Pages still function like posts, but aren't included in the
> > standard loop on the homepage and have a URL that lacks a date/time
> stamp.
> >  If your article was written 3 years ago but is still relevant, make it a
> > page instead.
> >
>
> Sure, using only pages is one way around the URL problems. But, this comes
> at the expense of losing most of WordPress' functionality. Pages don't use
> categories or tags and don't use feeds. Forget using plugins for related
> posts, or most popular - these are all for posts, not pages.
>
> One could argue that if a site contains only evergreen content then it
> should not be using WordPress. However, that argument would be ignoring the
> fact that many WordPress users are running sites, not blogs, on the
> platform. The date-based limitations are a hangover from the days when
> WordPress was just a blogging platform. If the number of "how do I do"
> posts
> around the Web are any indication then many people today see it as a
> CMS/site builder now. %postname% is common, despite the performance hit.
>
> The issue here isn't whether anyone is using WordPress in a way others may
> deem incorrect. It is how to generate the best URL structure for the way
> people are using WordPress. If people choose to optimise their URL
> structure
> for humans (which is always best for SEO anyway) and it doesn't result in
> good performance from WordPress they have two options - optimise the heck
> out of their server & caching, or move to a different platform. Most sites
> won't hit performance bottlenecks for some time. In the meantime, the core
> team are already working on improvements for the URL structure and rewrite
> rules.
>
> Lynne
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