So, last night when I was browsing through some of the articles that I have published on this site, I figured something very wrong. It's not like I didn't know about it but I just didn't pay serious attention to this. Up until last night, every single article's URL showed "articles" term followed by the post ID number.
The thing is, when you are reading any single article it should contain the "article" word instead of the plural form "articles" on the URL. The plural form should show up only when users are browsing through the archive. In other words, when users are reading Movie review related posts, it would make more sense to use plural form than singular form. I also thought having post ID number doesn't help my audience in any way or form. So, why should I show the post ID number on URL? It doesn't make any sense.
However, last night I made up my mind and changed the permalink structure for articles. Now the question is, how does it affect my site or users for that matter? It does and does it pretty bad way. Recent change will affect every single articles published on this site and that also includes every single article's link that has been shared on various sites. It also includes all the links that I have shared on my Facebook Page. Blog section of my site will not be affected by this change.
User's who would be visiting my Facebook Page to read older shared posts won't be able to visit their desired destination and would get 404 error notice. The reason is simple, previously shared links simply doesn't exist anymore. It is also not a viable option for me to go back and delete all the links I shared and then re-post all of them. I sincerely apologize for this inconvenience. I had to make this decision and change the URL for future.
One simple solution to this problem could be using the search option from the site. I am pretty sure you would find your desired post.
I am also aware of the fact that I will loose lots of traffic from Google because of this but changing URL later on would cause even bigger mess. I already submitted new sitemap through Google Webmaster Tools and expecting Google to change the links on their database as well. Finger crossed and thank you very much for your patience.
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