Slug – locating past slug and changing it

  • Unknown's avatar
    brokenrunner15 · Member ·

    I name my slugs by the number of my posts, e.g. my 622nd post is given the slug /622. But as I scheduled my 733rd post I noticed the slug changed to 733-2, indicating the number has already been used. I can’t imagine how it would have been used unless it was a past typo. Is there a way to locate the original 733 slug then change it so it no longer interferes with my present 733rd post slug?

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    I’m afraid there’s no way to search for posts by URL slug, so short of manually going through every post published on your site, there’s no way to find which specific post is using that slug.

    That said, I want to point out that using numbers as slugs like this is not very good for your SEO. When search engines index your content they look at various elements, including the post URL, and in particular the slug, to find the key words they connect that particular post to. Those key words are then used to determine the relevance of your posts to specific search queries.

    If this system works for you it’s fine, but keep in mind that you’re making it harder for search engines to effectively index your content, which means you might be missing out on opportunities to have people find your site via online searches.

    (By the way, I’m not suggesting you update the slugs on your existing posts – that would lead to all the permalinks for the posts that have already been shared online to break. But consider changing how you approach this going forward :) )

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