When is it a good idea to build a permalink structure from scratch?

Question

Is it a good idea to design a permalink structure from scratch?

The requirements to the structure are as follows:

• Pages to be referenced by their structure (example.com/grandparent-slug/parent-slug/child-slug).
• Posts to be referenced by category and date (example.com/category-slug/2013/07/my-post-slug).
• Archives only available by category (example.com/category-slug), by category and year (example.com/category-slug/2013) by category, year and month (example.com/category-slug/2013/07) and by tag (example.com/tags/tag-slug).
• All other links, like comments, feeds, trackbacks, pagination, archive by author and day, attachments are to be disabled.

Is it a better idea to create a new structure following these requirements or to modify an existing structure? In case of a new structure, how does one go about the permalink setting in WP admin? They are site-specific, and the theme needs to override them.

Answer 1

It's a good idea when you don't want to use the default structure :)

There are a lot (like really a lot..) of cases when site planning includes URL structure, it's best to really have a grasp of this plan before you begin.

I would go as far as graphing out a representation of the relationships/slugs, that way you can compare it with the "default" structure to figure out if you can make an easy hack (hierarchy/hook) or you need something from scratch.

The http://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Rewrite API is comprehesive and daunting at the same time.

I really recommend using CPT's http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/register_post_type to create the custom structure instead of bending over the defualt posts/pages. It will make your life easier.

Answer 2

WordPress comes with its own default URL structure, so you can't really make a permalink structure from scratch, it's best to modify the existing structure

You can edit the default structures to some degree within the Settings > Permalinks menu.

If you want to be able to change them further for your use, use a plugin that supports multi-site or add your PHP code within your themes functions.php

Also, my answer to the question 'Is it a good idea to design a permalink structure from scratch?' and 'whether I should, considering how this would interact with the settings in the permalinks menu' is no. Technically possible, yes.

WP comes with good pretty permalinks. I don't see value in needing to change them. From an end-user perspective, having good, clean navigational links in your theme will suffice. From an SEO perspective, I would keep the urls short and clear - but not bet on them giving me an SEO edge. From a dev perspective, my time can be put to better use since the defaults good.

Most of what you want is easily achieved:

• Page slugs already do that with pretty permalinks
• Posts can be done with /%category%/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/ - only the lowest numbered category will be used (http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks#Using_.25category.25_with_multiple_categories_on_a_post)
• Category and tags already do them by slug, but not by year/month. The WP permalinks admin doesn't support that. You'd need to roll your own solution or find one