Definition Permalink

A permalink (abbreviated Permalink) refers to a particular resource that makes a link permanently available. Permalinks are unique identifiers in the form of URLs, created always to be able to reach the designated content through that URL.

General information

The content of the web is continually changing. In particular, blogs, wikis, web directories, and news magazines are often changed and updated, making it difficult to access certain documents, content, and websites. On a news website, a previously published article will get placed backward each time new articles that are more current gets added. The same principle applies to the blog. Older messages slide down and will no longer be accessible from the home page. Similarly, on wikis, it often happens that older versions of the article will no longer be available.

A permanent link makes content available to the user that would not otherwise be easy to find or access. There are two reasons. First of all, ideally, the content should have the same identifier. Secondly, to preserve identifiers, so that not only users but also search engines be able to find and retrieve content through that identifier.

Therefore, web content that would otherwise be in the background would get a unique identifier. The concept behind this process is Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs), that refer to a resource using a unique identification code. In the case of permanent links, these resources are web content that gets referenced with a web address in the form of a URL. The URL indicates the location of the specific content of the web.

Example

The URL of a web page that contains multiple news items can, for example, look like this:

www.ejemplo.com/noticias

However, you cannot access specific news reports through this address. If you want to designate a specific report, you will use a permalink for that specific web content. For example, to refer to a single report from 03/14/2018, the Permalink may look like the following: www.ejemplo.com/noticiaas/informedenoticias14032018

This report will be permanently available under that URL and can be linked by third parties using this Permalink.

The ideal is to choose a permanent link that describes the resource, such as www.ejemplo.com/noticias/facebook-compra-whatsapp

Depending on the content management system used, there are very different possibilities. A semantic tag with the appropriate keywords is usually the first option, but it can get complemented by a numerical code specially generated for large websites.

 Relevance to SEO

Permanent links are essential in the SEO field to better identify specific resources and make them permanently available. It’s not just about article availability, but also readability and traceability for search engines. Therefore, a permalink URL should always consist of essential keywords or clear and concise keyword headings.

You can also make a lot of mistakes with permalinks

They should be relatively short. Up to five words are considered natural by Google. A longer Permalink gets less weight in indexing. Some characters, such as underscores, should be avoided. Words are hyphenated and are usually lowercase. You should also avoid duplicates of individual words within a URL. It is particularly important to avoid referencing multiple URLs in the same resource, which can interpret as duplicate content.

In summary, permalinks have to do with choosing a meaningful, unique identifier that describes the resource and makes it permanently available without violating other reasonable search engine optimization criteria.