How to bulk change WordPress permalinks?

One of the primary functions of Permalink Manager is to help you to bulk change WordPress permalinks and improving your website’s SEO score. All public post types (posts, pages, products, and other custom post type items) and taxonomies (categories, terms, product categories, or other custom taxonomy) are supported by the plugin.

In a nutshell, rewrite rules allow WordPress determine the content type and slug from the requested URL. Because of the rewrite rules limitations, WordPress itself does not allow for complete permalink customization.

Why is Permalink Manager better than the built-in WordPress permalink system? The plugin works around this limitation by detecting URLs using an unique algorithm. To boost the algorithm’s performance, all custom permalinks are saved statically in the database and used afterwards to determine which page should be loaded.

Need to edit single permalink?

If you want to change a single URL, go to the “Edit post/term” admin page and use “URI Editor”. More information on how to update the individual custom permalinks may be found here.

How to use permastructures to bulk change WordPress permalinks?

Until you manually edit it using the “URI Editor” the initial URL will be based on the permalink format (specified in the “Permastructure” settings section). In other words, Permalink Manager will apply your permastructure settings to generate the new custom permalink whenever a new post or term is published.

How to edit permastructures?

To modify permalinks in mass, you will need to use the “permastructures” editor. To open it, go to “Permastructures” section through the link in the admin sidebar (“Tools -> Permalink Manager“).

Bulk edit permalinks for WordPress post types and taxonomies — As a starting point, permalink input fields will use the native/original formats.

As seen above, you may edit the permastructures for each post type and category independently.
You have total control over how they are adjusted.

Versatility of Permalink Manager

There are a variety of ways to apply them to make your WordPress permalinks more attractive. You can, for example, delete or alter the permalink’s original base. It is also possible to use the same permalink base for different content types or add custom taxonomy terms to permalinks for custom post type items.

Customized permalink format (permastructure) set for sample post type.

How to preview new custom permalink format?

If you are unsure if the new “permastructures” settings are correct, you may examine the sample URL address within the “URI Editor“. The new URL based on your updated permalink format (given in the “Permastructure” settings section) will be shown in the “Default URI” row.

How Permastructures affect single permalinks — “**Current URI**” field shows the current canonical permalink.
The “**Default URI**” field indicates the default format of the custom permalink based on “Permastructure” settings.

How to use the new permalink formats for existing content?

You should be aware that when you alter the permastructures, the existing custom permalinks will not be automatically updated. For existing permalinks, you will need to use the “Regenerate/reset” tool to apply the new URL format to the old permalinks.

Regnerate/reset tool

Complete instructions for resetting the custom permalinks may be found here.

Why is the slug automatically appended?

By default, Permalink Manager automatically appends the slugs to the end of custom permalinks. If you would like to disable this, please go the Permastructure section where you have already configured custom permalink formats. Then, below the input boxes, click on the “Show additional settings” button. Now, when the additional container appears, select “Do not automatically append the slug” and save the changes.

Do not automatically append the slug settings

Bulk URI Editor

If you would like to manually tweak the custom permalinks, you can use the Bulk URI Editor. The items are grouped by post type and taxonomy for your convenience.

Bulk edit permalinks using URI Editor

Ideas for changing WordPress permalinks using Permalink Manager

How to use actual titles instead of native slugs in custom permalinks?

The native slugs are used by WordPress in posts’ and terms’ original permalinks. They are produced after the article or term is published and hence they remain unchanged even if you update the post/term title later. In certain cases, it may be preferable to dynamically use the title rather than the “static” slug. Please see the following notes for further information how to make Permalink Manager use the titles in the custom permalinks.

Slugs mode

Permalink Manager, like WordPress, will use native slugs by default. In the plugin setting (“Slugs mode” field) you may decide whether either native slugs or actual post titles should be included when new permalinks are generated.

"Slugs mode"

Auto-update permalinks

It is important to remember that Permalink Manager will not update your custom permalinks automatically. If you want it to update automatically, for example, when the post/term title changes, turn on “Auto-update permalinks” mode.

Automatically update permalinks

How to replace the slugs with post/term IDs?

You can use Permalink Manager to add element IDs to custom permalinks by using dedicated tag: %post_id% for posts and %term_id% for terms. However, if you want to use it to totally replace the slug, you will need to do a few further steps.

To begin, you must activate the “Do not automatically attach the slug” option attached to permastructure settings in order to use post/term IDs instead of slugs. Furthermore, you will need to use extra code snippet to help Permalink Manager recognize URLs with numeric endings and separate them from lookalike pagination endpoints.

add_filter('permalink_manager_deep_uri_detect', '__return_true');

Once it is done, you should adjust the permastructures settings and use %post_id% tag

How to add post ids to custom permalinks?