Like Wordpress, bbPress also makes use of what generally known as "pretty permalinks." Permalinks are the permanent URLs that link to your website forum topics or replies. By default, the permalink will look like this:
If you look at this URL, you would not know where this URL is pointed. You would not have any idea of the content that the link provides unless you were to click on the link to view the page in your internet browser. To make it easier to read, "pretty permalinks" were created to allow users to have a better idea of the contents of the link. This also helps with your search engine optimization. The following tutorial will walk you through making the changes to your permalinks and understanding the parts of the URL created when linking to the forums from bbPress. Here's an example of a more friendly or "pretty permalink":
How do pretty permalinks work?
In simplest terms, your website has a default file called the .htaccess and code is automatically placed there to rewrite the URLs that you are seeing when you reference your forum posts. Typically, this code is created and placed for you. However, in some cases you may be required to edit the .htaccess file to make certain changes. If you require further information on j
Using the Cpanel File Manager to view and edit files
What are Slugs?
Slugs are part of the URL that refer to a page or post- the entire URL is basically the address for the page you're viewing. The slug will not always easy to understand, but we are describing it here because bbPress provides you the ability to make changes to the slugs so that you can make the resulting permalink much friendlier and easy to read. This is an example of a slug in a standard URL and friendly one:
In this case the slug would be postno123". To make it friendly you could change the slug from "postno123" to "how-to-post-123". This may make the URL longer, but it also makes the URL easier to understand, and the user viewing the link will know something about the page before viewing it. This can be done in the Forum options under SLUGS.
In order to make changes to the slugs for your form, please refer to the following steps:
- Login to the Wordpress Administrator
- In the left hand menu, select Settings, then click on Forums. You will be in the bbPress Settings.You can set the slugs for both Archive and Single Forums, Topics, and Tags. You can also access the settings for bbPress Forums by going into the PLUGINS menu, and then selecting the SETTINGS
- When the changes are complete, then you can click on SAVE CHANGES.