• What are permalinks?
• Permalink structures
  • Considerations for permalink structures
• Updating Permalink (Slug) Value
• Flushing permalinks
  • Diagnosing the issue
  • Updating the permalinks structure
  • How to perform a hard refresh
  • How to clear your browser cache

What are permalinks?

WordPress considers permalinks to be the permanent URLs for your pages and posts. More information about permalinks can be found on the WordPress website and in WiscWeb - Updating Permalink (Slug) Value.

Permalinks can be found in Settings > Permalinks in your dashboard.

Permalink structures

WiscWeb websites will default to the Day and Name structure: 

https://wiscweb.wisc.edu/2024/08/12/sample-post/

We recommend this structure for most cases. If wishing to use other structures, please review the Considerations before proceeding. If you have questions, please submit via the Customer Support Form. 

Considerations for permalink structures

While various permalink structures exist, we recommend using the default "Day and Name" structure for the following reasons: 

1. Impact on post URLs - If you decide you don't like your alternative permalink structure and try to change it back to the default approach (Day and Name), all of your post URLs will break.
   
   
2. SEO implications - It is better for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to use the Day and Name structure that WordPress sets by default.
   
   
3. Complexity - Changing the default permalink structures can add unnecessary complexity to your URLs. It can also cause you problems down the road, if you ever want to switch back to a more standard approach. 
   
   
4. WordPress behaviors - Changing permalink structure to custom options has been known to break some native WordPress behaviors. An example is that WordPress natively redirects /sitemaps.xml to /wp-sitemaps.xml. When using a custom permalink structure, this breaks and your pages will not get indexed by Google as expected.

Updating Permalink (Slug) Value

More information can be found in WiscWeb - Updating Permalink (Slug) Value.

Flushing Permalinks

Flushing WordPress permalinks is a process that refreshes a website's URL structure. Permalinks must be flushed whenever enabling a new post type or taxonomy. These instructions will walk you through how to perform this action.

Diagnosing the issue

The UW Theme has a few built-in post types: 

• Fac/staff bios
• Documents

Additionally, the WiscWeb team makes other post types available via plugins:

• UW Content Sharing
• UW Events
• UW Publications

When creating a post of a new post type for the first time, the WordPress software may not know how to structure its URL, and the page may display a Page Not Found error. 

Updating the permalinks structure

Performing the steps below will clear the currently saved URL structure and cause WordPress to regenerate the URLs and resolve the Page Not Found error. 

1. From your WordPress Dashboard sidebar, find the Settings menu and select Permalinks.
   
   
   
   
2. On the Permalinks page, click Save Changes at the bottom of the page. There are no additional actions needed. Clicking the Save Changes button is all you need to do to trigger WordPress to flush and regenerate the permalinks.
   
   
   
   
3. After flushing your website's permalinks, you may not see the changes take effect until you clear your browser cache or perform a hard refresh. See below for instructions for taking these additional actions.

Perform a hard refresh

This process will force the browser to load the most recent changes to the page and ignore any saved/cached files. 

• Windows/Linux: Hold down the Ctrl key and press the F5 key on the keyboard
• Mac: Hold down Command and Shift keys and press R on the keyboard

Clear your browser cache

This process will wipe the cookies and files your browser saves. Clearing the cache will force the browser to load the most recent changes to the page. It will also log you out of any currently logged-in websites. 

• Clearing Browser Cache and Cookies