How To Change Your Blog Post URL (Blogger Only)

When writing and publishing a post on Blogger, the only options in the sidebar people tend to use often are 'labels' and 'schedule', and yet there is another important option just below those can help your blog just as much, if not more, and it's your 'Permalink' option, aka, what your post URL looks like in link form.

Currently, when creating any post, your permalink is created by using your title. As clever and handy as that is, if your title doesn't focus on the subject at hand, or isn't key word rich, you're not going to hitting up popularity in your search results, neither are you going to be showing people what the link they're actually following to your post is about; that's both bad form, bad for business and bad for your blog. Changing the URL of your blog post is actually really easy and simple, and is a habit you should get yourself into no matter where you blog. I'm going to show you how to change Blogger Post URL's today.

What is a permalink? Why is it so important?

Permalinks are the end of your link url, the part that follows your domain/website name. For example:

https://nellieandco.blogspot.com/change-blogger-post-permalink-url/

The highlighted zone is your permalink. It's the part of your link that says what your post is about, and works with search engines to drive traffic to your post. Ever searched for something specific, for exmaple 'how to create blog post on blogger'? Search engines use key words in your search - create, blog, post and blogger - and provide you with the highest ranking results, all related to and found by using the url in your link. The more key-word rich and specific your permalink, the better your search results, the higher your ranking, and the more traffic your post brings. Important and worthwhile? Absolultely.

How to Find Your Blog Post Permalink

Create a Post, name It and Save It. Now, Choose the 'Permalink' Option

You'll instantly be given a drop menu as is shown in the example. You can see that the url now ends with the title of your blog post - in my example, I named the post 'Blogger Post Example'. If you have a blog title that is 7 or more words long, chances are your permalink gets cut short and only takes the first 6 words. Sure, this isn't always a bad thing, but if your post doesn't relate to it's subject early on in the title (which is something you should consider in the first place) your permalink may as well not be there.

https://beautifulbookishbutterflies.blogspot.com/bookish-musings-so-you-dont-like/

This is one of my old links to 5 things people who don't like writing reviews can do instead. It says absolutely nothing about the subject, in fact, it doesn't convey any information other than it's about people not liking something!

In order to customise the permalink, you have to choose the Custom option rather than Automatic. You'll now be given the chance to create your own permalink.

How To Create a Custom Permalink

Consider Your Blog Post Title, Topic and Make It Key-Word Rich

Take a look at the two examples. The original permalink for this post was good enough due to my key-word rich title that hones in on the topic of the post, but it didn't to tweak it a little. The new permalink takes away unnecessary stop words (such as 'and', 'if' 'to' etc.) from the link and replaces them with words that focus on the topic - change, blogger, post, permalink and url. These are the key-words most likely to be searched by people through search engines, which means my post will rank higher amongst their results.

Changing your permalink when you're writing your post is a habit I recommend all bloggers get into. Consider it part of putting together your post title; as soon as you have a working title, work your permalink around it, focusing on key-words referring to your topic, and your blog will instantly look and feel more professional. Definitely more than worth it.

You can change permalinks of posts that have been published too

When changing the url of a post that's already been published, there's a little more to take into consideration, as your published post has already been linked with that url and more than likely posted on social media whenever you've promoted the post. If you change the url of a published post without first making sure that the old url will instantly redirect viewers through to the new url, you'll lose people following the old link.

Before you edit your permalink, make sure you have copied your current url web address somewhere it's easily accessible (I use either word documents or sticky notes). For example:

https://beautifulbookishbutterflies.blogspot.com/bookish-musings-so-you-dont-like/

Once you have the url somewhere safe, go into the post you want the change the permalink of. In order to change the permalink, you'll have to revert the post back into a draft, (the date you published the post will stay as it is, don't worry about that changing) and follow the steps shown above. Once you've saved the new permalink, republish and view the the post with it's new url.

Copy this new url web address somewhere easily accessible too as you'll need both url's for the next step.

Go into Template Settings, Edit HTML and find <head>

Just below <head>, add the following:

<script>
if(window.location.href == 'YOUR OLD URL'; {
window.location="YOUR NEW URL";
}
</script>

In place of YOUR OLD URL add your old url web address.
In place of YOUR NEW URL add your new url web address.
Make sure you only swap out the text in uppercase, or else the code won't work.

Click save template, and once it's saved, insert your old url into the web address bar. It should now redirect you to the new url. If you plan on changing numerous posts permalinks, you must do this step for every post you change, adding the same code starting from <script> and ending after </script> below the previous. It's well worth it.

For Wordpress users interested in whether you can do something similar, Ashley at Nose Graze has a post all about your version of permalinks, slugs, and how to change them, so do check that out.

2016 Update

As simple as this code is, it does have a habit of not working with all templates, especially those that people purchase or edit, and therefore the code can find itself not working. If this is the case, there is an alternative method worth trying.

On your blogs Dashboard, go into your left sidebar and down to Settings and further into Search Preferences. You'll see the option to set up some custom redirects. From there, you'll be able to set up a new direct from the old URL you've saved to the new one you've created. Your FROM value is your old URL, so add that in, and in the TO value, add your new URL, so your blog knows where to send the visitor. Also make sure you set the redirect as permanent.

Did you know you could customise blog post permalinks?