[wp-hackers] Permalink problems

[Harish Narayanan]

RePost wrote:

> Harish, I'm not sure where to find "Linked From" in Google Webmaster
> Tools. Are you talking about the "Link" section under Index Stats?

>From the menu on the left:
Diagnostics -> Web Crawl

>From the options that appear on the page:
Not found

You will now be left with a table with attributes:
URL   Detail   Linked From   Problem Detected On

For every broken URL listed, you can figure out which pages are pointing
to it. A link style of yoursite.org/bar/date/foo/?p=23 (or whatever)
sounds fishy.

> I'm afraid this just leads to more questions from me, as I'm new to
> WordPress. As I understand it, both the default links and the friendly
> urls (Permalinks) are out there, and I presumed Google would index them
> all. In fact, because I know those default links will never change
> (while the friendly urls could conceivably change to anything the
> operator chooses), I have used the default urls for my internal links.

I would suggest you pick a human-readable URL style that you will never
change in the future. As useful as /?p= style links are, human beings
will probably never use them, so in essence even your 'friendly URL'
style is frozen. Choose wisely and keep it fixed.

> One further clarification. I was dismayed to see my site, whose presence
> I had developed over more than two years, drop completely off the Google
> map shortly after I made the (necessary) changeover to WordPress. Google
> only has begun re-indexing the site over the past couple of days. At
> this point, most of the information in my Google Webmaster Tools still
> relates to the old, defunct, links.

Give it a week or two for it to re-index and correct itself. Try not to
panic by checking GWMT (Google Web ...) too frequently. If it still
bothers you, you could try to use one of the many site map generating
utilities with your nice, new URL layout (there's probably a plug-in for
it) and submit it to nudge Google along.

Harish