Chris A. a11n

<p>Backwards Compatible Permalinks helps prevent 404 errors when switching between permalink structures.</p>
<p>It achieves this by appending a set of backwards compatible post rewrite rules. This ensures posts are still accessible at their previous permalink after the permalink structure is updated.</p>
<h4>Example</h4>
<p>Let’s say your permalink structure is set to “Month and name” and you have a post titled “I Love WordPress.” That particular post would live at <code>https://example.com/2019/03/i-love-wordpress/</code>.</p>
<p>But what if you wanted to switch to the “Post name” permalink structure and have your post live at <code>https://example.com/i-love-wordpress/</code> instead?</p>
<p>You could but this would result in the existing post permalink 404ing when visited. Which is problematic if the previous URL was bookmarked or shared on social media.</p>
<p>With Backwards Compatible Permalinks installed your post would be accessible at both the old and new permalink structures:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>https://example.com/2019/03/i-love-wordpress/</code></li>
<li><code>https://example.com/i-love-wordpress/</code></li>
</ul>
<h4>Caveats</h4>
<ul>
<li>This plugin does not work retroactively. i.e. you must have the plugin installed and activated prior to switching permalink structures before backwards compatibility will work.</li>
<li>Currently only standard posts are supported.</li>
<li>Backwards compatibility is not supported between certain permalink structure updates. This is due to a clash between permalink structure regex matching.</li>
<li>Backwards compatibility is only provided between the most recent permalink structure update. i.e. you cannot change your permalink structure 3 times and have backwards compatibility across all 3 structures.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Deactivate or uninstall</h4>
<p>After deactivating or uninstalling this plugin please ensure you visit Settings > Permalinks in the WordPress admin area to flush your rewrite rules.</p>
<h4>Contributing</h4>
<p>Contributions are <a href="https://github.com/aprea/backwards-compatible-permalinks" rel="nofollow ugc">welcomed on GitHub</a>.</p>
<h3>From within WordPress</h3>
<ol>
<li>Visit ‘Plugins > Add New’.</li>
<li>Search for ‘Backwards Compatible Permalinks’.</li>
<li>Activate Backwards Compatible Permalinks from your Plugins page.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Manually</h3>
<ol>
<li>Upload the <code>backwards-compatible-permalinks</code> folder to the <code>/wp-content/plugins/</code> directory.</li>
<li>Activate the Backwards Compatible Permalinks plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.</li>
</ol>


Backwards Compatible Permalinks

Provides a degree of backwards compatibility when switching between permalink structures.

Kodo

<p>Slug-Free Permalinks lets you switch selected post types and taxonomies to simple ID based permalink formats.</p>
<p>You can choose between:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>/post/123/</code></li>
<li><code>/post-123/</code></li>
</ul>
<p>The plugin only affects the post types and taxonomies you enable in the settings screen.</p>
<p>Features:</p>
<ul>
<li>Select individual public post types</li>
<li>Select individual public taxonomies</li>
<li>Choose slash or hyphen based ID permalink format</li>
<li>Optionally redirect legacy slug URLs to the current ID based permalink when WordPress can resolve the request</li>
<li>Preserve prefixed permalink bases such as <code>/en/</code> when another plugin adds them</li>
<li>Flush rewrite rules automatically when settings change</li>
</ul>
<p>This plugin is focused on permalink structure only. It does not add content features or front-end UI.</p>
<p>Plugin page (English): https://happas.jp/en/slug-free-permalinks/<br />
Plugin page (Japanese): https://happas.jp/slug-free-permalinks/</p>
<p>Development repository: https://github.com/1008k/slug-free-permalinks</p>
<p>This plugin is best suited to new sites, sites still defining their permalink policy, or structured-content use cases where slug management is unnecessary.</p>
<p>If your site already has a large number of published posts and established slug based URLs, review the impact carefully before enabling it. Check existing inbound links, search traffic, social shares, and editorial workflow assumptions.</p>
<p>Known limitations:</p>
<ul>
<li>If a post type slug and taxonomy slug are identical, their ID based rewrite patterns can conflict.</li>
</ul>


Slug-Free Permalinks – Simple ID-Based URLs

Use ID based permalinks for selected post types and taxonomies without managing slugs.

Backwards Compatible Permalinks vs Slug-Free Permalinks – Simple ID-Based URLs