Title: Permalink settings not “taking” Last modified: August 19, 2016 --- # Permalink settings not “taking” * Resolved [mzimmers](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mzimmers/) * (@mzimmers) * [16 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/permalink-settings-not-taking/) * Hi – * In my attempt to get “pretty permalinks” working, I’ve noticed an odd behavior. When I use the default format (?p=123), it works as I’d expect. * When I use any of the other pre-supplied formats, or a custom format, I get links that appear to be the page slugs from the heirarchy of pages leading to the page I navigate to. * I reviewed the codex page on permalinks and I think I’ve got all the bases covered there. (While there is no explicit FileInfo directive, it’s my understanding that the default is what I want here.) * File protection on the root WP directory is 755; on the .htaccess file within, 644. * So…any idea on how this particular form of permalink is finding its way into my site? * Thanks. Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total) * [Mark / t31os](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t31os_/) * (@t31os_) * [16 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/permalink-settings-not-taking/#post-1378423) * I’d take a guess and say the links themselves are formed in such a way that it’s creating duplicate URLs as you browse through each additional page. * Does this happen on any page, or particular ones? * Thread Starter [mzimmers](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mzimmers/) * (@mzimmers) * [16 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/permalink-settings-not-taking/#post-1378424) * Seems to be happening on all pages (which are Pages, BTW). * When I edit a Page, the permalink below the title is in the form I described… so it doesn’t seem dependent on the browser navigating through the page heirarchy to get to the Page in question (if I understood your guess). * Again, I’ll point out that it’s doing this with the pre-supplied formats as well as custom ones I make up. Is this possibly a bug, or could a plugin be interfering here? * [Mark / t31os](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t31os_/) * (@t31os_) * [16 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/permalink-settings-not-taking/#post-1378429) * If you’ve not tried disabling plugins or switching theme, it’s usually a good idea to test under those conditions if not only to rule them out as possible causes. * Give it a try, and report back if there’s any change. * Thread Starter [mzimmers](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mzimmers/) * (@mzimmers) * [16 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/permalink-settings-not-taking/#post-1378439) * Disabled all plugins and tried themes “Default 1.6” and “Classic 1.5” with the same results. * [Mark / t31os](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t31os_/) * (@t31os_) * [16 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/permalink-settings-not-taking/#post-1378444) * Would it be possible to provide a URL so i can see the problem, or is this a local install? * Thread Starter [mzimmers](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mzimmers/) * (@mzimmers) * [16 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/permalink-settings-not-taking/#post-1378447) * Oh! I’m so sorry…I’m used to having a .sig file with the URL in it. [ScopedIn](http://www.scopedin.com) * I can furnish you with a username and password if you really want to look under the hood. * [Mark / t31os](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t31os_/) * (@t31os_) * [16 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/permalink-settings-not-taking/#post-1378448) * Ok, i’m not sure i really understand the problem. * Can you give me some direction on replicating the issue, pointing out what the behaviour is, and what it’s expected to be, perhaps i misunderstood your initial post. * No need for a login just yet, i’d like to understand the problem a little more before we need consider anything like that… 😉 * Thread Starter [mzimmers](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mzimmers/) * (@mzimmers) * [16 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/permalink-settings-not-taking/#post-1378450) * OK, my understanding of the “pretty” permalinks is that, when used, the URL displayed in the browser will follow the format specified in the permalinks settings dialog. * I’ve set my permalinks to: /%post_id%/%postname%/ * So, my (possibly incorrect) expectation is that when someone navigates to page abc on my site, the URL will display as: * [http://www.scopedin.com/123/abc](http://www.scopedin.com/123/abc) * But, this is not what’s happening. The URL is formed from the stubs of each parent Page in the heirarchy leading to the Page in question. So what I get is: * [http://www.scopedin.com/parent1-stub/parent2-stub/parent3-stub/abc](http://www.scopedin.com/parent1-stub/parent2-stub/parent3-stub/abc) * Which makes for an awfully long URL, and kind of defeats my understanding of the purpose of the pretty permalinks. * [Mark / t31os](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t31os_/) * (@t31os_) * [16 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/permalink-settings-not-taking/#post-1378453) * Pages operate under a hierarchy, if a page is a child of another page, the url reflects the hierarchy of that relationship.. * With pages, both %postname% and %post_id% are treated the same, pages are not listed using their ID but they’re name. * The same is true for any permalink structure in regard to pages, aside from default. * Pages are intended to behave like static pages, so where as a regular php site may have a home url and page urls like the following.. * > example.com > example.com/page1.php example.com/page2.php * WordPress would emulate that behaviour with the following … * > example.com > example.com/page1 example.com/page2 * Subpages are an equivalent of example.com/folder/page.php … again this is just an emulation of using static pages on a PHP based website i believe. * ID’s really only apply to archived content, such as posts. * Or at the least, that is my understanding… * Following recent discussion on permalink performance, if you have any intention of using alot of pages on your site, i’d recommend using one of the provided options for permalinks.. in any case, page permalinks should behave the same way under either settings. * I did do a few permalink tests to check behaviour, so what’s said above is based on my brief testing and my existing experience using WP, but it’s by no means a definitive answer (i don’t write the code personally). * If you feel you have a particular need for pages, perhaps you could outline your reasoning for choosing to use pages, then maybe myself or another member can offer an alternative for organising your content in a way that will provide nicer and better suited URLs. * I’m off shortly (uk time), so if you don’t get another response back quite so switftly it’s not because i’m not following the thread… 😉 * Thread Starter [mzimmers](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mzimmers/) * (@mzimmers) * [16 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/permalink-settings-not-taking/#post-1378457) * OK, if I understand you, then permalinks apply to posts, not to Pages. I wasn’t aware of this. * I honestly can’t remember why I made the decision to use Pages in my site. I think it was because I wanted the heirarchy, and because my content is 99% static. My site really isn’t a blog in the traditional sense. * I organized my Pages to reflect the logical composition of information on the site. This way I can use the Multi-level Navigation Plugin to automatically create a path for the reader to follow to new Pages. I didn’t know how to do this using posts; in fact, I still don’t. * I’m actually happy with the way the site works now; I just got into the permalink issue because I was trying to use Super Cache. If I can’t get shorter URLs to display, I’ll live with it. * [Mark / t31os](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t31os_/) * (@t31os_) * [16 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/permalink-settings-not-taking/#post-1378458) * Permalinks will apply to pages, they just don’t change a whole lot compared to posts, i didn’t quite realise this until i actually went to test, following one of my earlier responses. * I personally don’t use WordPress quite as extensively as some users, but i’m fortunate in that i can understand code enough to be able to fiddle and pull things apart, in a manner of speaking, so i don’t mind digging in and playing around to understand how something works, which is why i usually say in alot of posts here “i may be wrong” or similar. * The last thing i want to do is give incorrect advice to users, i’m simply relaying my interpretation of how it works for me, and how i believe it operates… so don’t take what i say as gospel, give it a little while and more users may respond with something more useful to your particular needs. * I usually monitor threads i respond to (subject to placement on the thread tracking pages), but given that it’s a new thread i’ll be around if you have any queries you want to chuck my way (well from tomorrow i’m heading to bed now).. * 🙂 * Thread Starter [mzimmers](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mzimmers/) * (@mzimmers) * [16 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/permalink-settings-not-taking/#post-1378663) * Hey, T31 – * Thanks for helping me talk through this issue. It looks like it was a non-problem; I just didn’t read between the lines in the codex well enough. * If you or anyone have suggestions on using posts instead of Pages for my site, I’m more than happy to listen. I just couldn’t figure out a way to make Posts work for me. * I’ll mark this thread resolved. Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total) The topic ‘Permalink settings not “taking”’ is closed to new replies. ## Tags * [formatting](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/formatting/) * [ignoring](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/ignoring/) * [permalinks](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/permalinks/) * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/) * 12 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [mzimmers](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mzimmers/) * Last activity: [16 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/permalink-settings-not-taking/#post-1378663) * Status: resolved ## Topics ### Topics with no replies ### Non-support topics ### Resolved topics ### Unresolved topics ### All topics