Custom Permalinks vs Redirection

You want to take control of your WordPress site’s URLs? The Custom Permalinks plugin gives you the power to set unique, custom URLs for any post, page, tag, or category. This means you can design your site’s structure exactly how you envision it, rather than being limited by WordPress’s default settings. When you set a custom permalink, the original post URL will be automatically redirected to your new, customized URL. Key Features Individual Permalink Control: Assign unique URLs to any post, page, tag, or category. Site Structure Control: Gain ultimate control over how your site’s URLs are organized. Post Type Permalink Structures (v3.0.0+): Define custom permalink structures for each public Post Type using predefined tags, automatically generating URLs upon content creation. You can still manually edit any permalink. If left empty, default settings will apply. Automatic Redirects: Old URLs keep working — visitors and search engines are redirected to the new custom permalink automatically. Getting Started: Plugin Settings You can configure Custom Permalinks by navigating to Settings > Custom Permalinks in your WordPress Dashboard. To set a permalink for an individual post, page, category, or tag, edit that item and look for the Custom Permalink field near the top (or in the sidebar) of the editor screen — enter the URL path you want and save. Available Tags for Permalink Structures When setting up your custom permalink structures, you can use a variety of tags that will dynamically populate the URL. Here’s a breakdown of what’s available: %year%: The year of the post in four digits, eg: 2025 %monthnum%: Month the post was published, in two digits, eg: 01 %day%: Day the post was published in two digits, eg: 02 %hour%: Hour of the day, the post was published, eg: 15 %minute%: Minute of the hour, the post was published, eg: 43 %second%: Second of the minute, the post was published, eg: 33 %post_id%: The unique ID of the post, eg: 123 %category%: A clean version of the category name (its slug). Nested sub-categories will appear as nested directories in the URL.. %author%: A sanitized version of the post author’s name. %postname%: A clean version of the post or page title (its slug). For example, “This Is A Great Post!” becomes this-is-a-great-post in the URL. %parent_postname%: Similar to %postname%, but uses the immediate parent page’s slug if a parent is selected. %parents_postnames%: Similar to %postname%, but includes all parent page slugs if parents are selected. %title%: The title of the post, converted to a slug. For example, “This Is A Great Post!” becomes this-is-a-great-post. Unlike %postname% which is set once, %title% automatically updates in the permalink if the post title changes (unless the post is published or the permalink is manually edited). %ctax_TAXONOMY_NAME%: A clean version of a custom taxonomy’s name. Replace TAXONOMY_NAME with the actual taxonomy name. You can also provide a default slug for when no category/taxonomy is selected by using ?? (e.g., %ctax_type??sales% will use “sales” as a default). %ctax_TAXONOMY_NAME_name%: The custom taxonomy term’s name (instead of its slug). Replace TAXONOMY_NAME with the actual taxonomy name. Supports a default value using ?? when no term is selected (e.g., %ctax_type_name??Sales%). %ctax_parent_TAXONOMY_NAME%: Similar to %ctax_TAXONOMY_NAME%, but includes the immediate parent category/tag slug in the URL if a parent is selected. %ctax_parent_TAXONOMY_NAME_name%: Similar to %ctax_TAXONOMY_NAME_name%, but includes the immediate parent term’s name if a parent is selected. %ctax_parents_TAXONOMY_NAME%: Similar to %ctax_TAXONOMY_NAME%, but includes all parent category/tag slugs in the URL if parents are selected. %ctax_parents_TAXONOMY_NAME_name%: Similar to %ctax_TAXONOMY_NAME_name%, but includes all parent term names if parents are selected. %custom_permalinks_TAG_NAME%: Developers have the flexibility to define their own custom tags(replace _TAG_NAME with your desired name). To ensure these tags resolve to the correct permalinks, simply apply the custom_permalinks_post_permalink_tag filter. Important Note: For new posts, Custom Permalinks will keep updating the permalink while the post is in draft mode, assuming a structure is defined in the plugin settings. Once the post is published or its permalink is manually updated, the plugin will stop automatic updates for that specific post. Custom Permalinks: Fine-Tuning with Filters Custom Permalinks offers a range of filters that empower developers to precisely control its behavior. You can explore all available filters, complete with example code snippets, in our GitHub repository. For Assistance: Premium Users: If you need assistance implementing these filters, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us via our Premium contact support. Other Users: You can also directly reach out to the plugin author via LinkedIn. Need Help or Found a Bug? Support: For one-on-one email support, consider purchasing Custom Permalinks Premium. While some basic support may be provided on the WordPress.org forums, email support is prioritized for premium users. Bug Reports: If you encounter a bug, please report it on GitHub. Make sure to provide complete information to reproduce the issue. GitHub is for bug reports, not general support questions. If you experience any site-breaking issues after upgrading, please report them on the WordPress Forum or GitHub with detailed information. You can always revert to an older version by downloading it from https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-permalinks/advanced/.

Redirection is the most popular redirect manager for WordPress. With it you can easily manage 301 redirections, keep track of 404 errors, and generally tidy up any loose ends your site may have. This can help reduce errors and improve your site ranking. Redirection is designed to be used on sites with a few redirects to sites with thousands of redirects. It has been a WordPress plugin for over 10 years and has been recommended countless times. And it’s free! Full documentation can be found at https://redirection.me Redirection is compatible with PHP from 7.4 to 8.5. Redirect manager Create and manage redirects quickly and easily without needing Apache or Nginx knowledge. If your WordPress supports permalinks then you can use Redirection to redirect any URL. There is full support for regular expressions so you can create redirect patterns to match any number of URLs. You can match query parameters and even pass them through to the target URL. The plugin can also be configured to monitor when post or page permalinks are changed and automatically create a redirect to the new URL. Conditional redirects In addition to straightforward URL matching you can redirect based on other conditions: Login status – redirect only if the user is logged in or logged out WordPress capability – redirect if the user is able to perform a certain capability Browser – redirect if the user is using a certain browser Referrer – redirect if the user visited the link from another page Cookies – redirect if a particular cookie is set HTTP headers – redirect based on a HTTP header Custom filter – redirect based on your own WordPress filter IP address – redirect if the client IP address matches Server – redirect another domain if also hosted on this server Page type – redirect if the current page is a 404 Full logging A configurable logging option allows to view all redirects occurring on your site, including information about the visitor, the browser used, and the referrer. A ‘hit’ count is maintained for each redirect so you can see if a URL is being used. Logs can be exported for external viewing, and can be searched and filtered for more detailed investigation. Display geographic information about an IP address, as well as a full user agent information, to try and understand who the visitor is. You are able to disable or reduce IP collection to meet the legal requirements of your geographic region, and can change the amount of information captured from the bare minimum to HTTP headers. You can also log any redirect happening on your site, including those performed outside of Redirection. Add HTTP headers HTTP headers can be added to redirects or your entire site that help reduce the impact of redirects or help increase security. You can also add your own custom headers. Track 404 errors Redirection will keep track of all 404 errors that occur on your site, allowing you to track down and fix problems. Errors can be grouped to show where you should focus your attention, and can be redirected in bulk. Query parameter handling You can match query parameters exactly, ignore them, and even pass them through to your target. Migrate Permalinks Changed your permalink structure? You can migrate old permalinks simply by entering the old permalink structure. Multiple migrations are supported. Apache & Nginx support By default Redirection will manage all redirects using WordPress. However you can configure it so redirects are automatically saved to a .htaccess file and handled by Apache itself. If you use Nginx then you can export redirects to an Nginx rewrite rules file. Fine-grained permissions Fine-grained permissions are available so you can customise the plugin for different users. This makes it particularly suitable for client sites where you may want to prevent certain actions, and remove functionality. Import & Export The plugin has a fully-featured import and export system and you can: Import and export to Apache .htaccess Export to Nginx rewrite rules Copy redirects between sites using JSON Import and export to CSV for viewing in a spreadsheet Use WP CLI to automate import and export You can also import from the following plugins: Simple 301 Redirects SEO Redirection Safe Redirect Manager Rank Math WordPress old slug redirects Quick Post/Pages redirects Search Regex compatible Redirection is compatible with Search Regex, allowing you to bulk update your redirects. Wait, it’s free? Yes, it’s really free. There’s no premium version and no need to pay money to get access to features. This is a dedicated redirect management plugin. Support Please submit bugs, patches, and feature requests to: https://github.com/johngodley/redirection Please submit translations to: https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/redirection