Title: WordPress Permalink Issue
Last modified: September 2, 2024

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# WordPress Permalink Issue

 *  [a10086](https://wordpress.org/support/users/a10086/)
 * (@a10086)
 * [1 year, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-permalink-issue-4/)
 * The permalink for a WordPress category page is: example.com/category/news/company.
 * You can still access: example.com/category/news-999/company.
 * The alias of the top-level category, “news,” can be changed to any letter and
   still be accessible, for example:
    - example.com/category/aaaaaaaa/company
    - example.com/category/2345678/company
 * Even with incorrect parent category aliases, it is still accessible. Why does
   this happen? This should be unreasonable, right?

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

 *  [rkg04](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rkg04/)
 * (@rkg04)
 * [1 year, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-permalink-issue-4/#post-17989930)
 * WP uses a hierarchical permalink structure for categories (child categories nested
   under parents in the URL). Top-level category still allows access to page as 
   WP resolves URL based on the final segment. The slug (‘company’) is matched against
   the actual category slug in the database.
 * If you change news to anything else (e.g., news-999, aaaaaaa , 2345678), WordPress
   will still look for a category with the slug ‘company’ and its hierarchy, but
   it does not strictly enforce the parent slugs in the URL as long as the final
   category matches.
 *  Thread Starter [a10086](https://wordpress.org/support/users/a10086/)
 * (@a10086)
 * [1 year, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-permalink-issue-4/#post-17990029)
 * If all these pages are crawled by Google, it will result in too many duplicate
   pages, which could negatively impact SEO, right?
 * I’m currently facing this issue…
 *  Moderator [James Huff](https://wordpress.org/support/users/macmanx/)
 * (@macmanx)
 * [1 year, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-permalink-issue-4/#post-17990375)
 * View source on one of those “alias” pages and search in source for “canonical”.
 * You should find a `<link rel="canonical"` pointing to the 1 page that Google 
   will index.
 *  Thread Starter [a10086](https://wordpress.org/support/users/a10086/)
 * (@a10086)
 * [1 year, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-permalink-issue-4/#post-17990731)
 * But WordPress’s category pages don’t have this tag unless an SEO plugin is installed.
   Why can’t WordPress handle this issue directly?
 *  Moderator [James Huff](https://wordpress.org/support/users/macmanx/)
 * (@macmanx)
 * [1 year, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-permalink-issue-4/#post-17990733)
 * WordPress has provided its own canonical tags for years, no plugin required.
 * Again, just check the source in one of those pages.
 * I would have for you, and directly quoted one here, but you haven’t shared your
   site’s URL. 😉

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

The topic ‘WordPress Permalink Issue’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [permalink](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/permalink/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 5 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [James Huff](https://wordpress.org/support/users/macmanx/)
 * Last activity: [1 year, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-permalink-issue-4/#post-17990733)
 * Status: not resolved

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