Clue! It was Professor WordPress in the Address Bar with a URL

Fifteen Minutes to go…

This is the reference site for my 2021 PressEd Conference twitter based talk about… the productive things you can do in WordPress just by knowing and manipulating it’s URL structure. Not even a mention of code is here.

Clue! It was Professor WordPress in the Address Bar with a URL
Get clued into the ins and outs of how your WordPress site generates its web addresses (htaccess! permalinks! slugs!) as well as some tricks for manipulating URLs for searching, randomizing, and date scanning sites.

All the tweets will be added post-presentation and is also available as a Twitter Moment.

This [WordPress] site offers more than what will fit into 280 characters. Plus it’s a chance to show off my WP-Highlights theme. Sneaky, eh?

Imagery based upon my own photos and editing thereof of the Clue 50th Anniversary edition board game. Professor image CC0 from Open Peeps with added WordPress logo.

Peek Behind the Curtain

What you see and click for a WordPress link is not what the software sees…

Professor WordPress says let's peek under the curtain at how WordPress reads and interprets its own web addresses #PressEdConf21 (2/12) https://t.co/YcxEnYPiIt pic.twitter.com/zmIuI51Bub
— Alan Levine (@cogdog) March 25, 2021

Reading WordPress URLs

Let’s look at a few examples of what we see versus what WordPress sees.

When you go to a URL with nice words in it what WordPress really sees is something more cryptic. Let's look at some examples and read the URLs #PressEdConf21 (3/12) https://t.co/8mOMVW41Qj pic.twitter.com/GyO5RKBMND
— Alan Levine (@cogdog) March 25, 2021

It’s All About the Permalinks

Most people never touch these settings. Too bad. You are missing out.

What the world sees for your URLs is managed by Permalink Settings. The defaults can yield mile long urls as it is based on the blog post title. You can change that. #PressEdConf21 (4/12)https://t.co/9wdTdX57wr pic.twitter.com/DswKA9v723
— Alan Levine (@cogdog) March 25, 2021

The Voodoo of .htaccess

A text file that sits in your WordPress root directory should not be messed with! It does the magic to convert human readable URLs to WordPress ones.

The voodoo magic of going from "Pretty Links" humans can understand to ones WordPress uses is managed via the mystical .htaccess file. #PressEdConf21 (5/12)https://t.co/tPWOOBsuL7 pic.twitter.com/ZAijnUmiPE
— Alan Levine (@cogdog) March 25, 2021

Are You Ready?

Enough mumbo jumbo, show us the URL tricks!

Are You Ready? Grab the web address of any wordpress site you know, self hosted or even https://t.co/mdU6wxy3BA #PressEdConf21 (6/12)https://t.co/slbNhXC7Pt pic.twitter.com/nmwdOAfJYg
— Alan Levine (@cogdog) March 25, 2021

Give us a Random Post

Add some unexpected element to your WordPress site, a link that can retried a randomly selected post.

First wordpress trick, slap "/?random" on the end of any wordpress main url. Woah, Neo, a link that spins up a random blog post! (might now work on all sites) #PressEdConf21 (7/12)https://t.co/s2dXjJRfMf pic.twitter.com/AxhICxi8im
— Alan Levine (@cogdog) March 25, 2021

Stitch Together A WordPress Search

Make a link to search your blog, heck someone elses, for anything. Right from the URL bar.

Run a search for a keyword on any wordpress url? slap "?s=dog" I can quickly see how much you like dogs. Combine with search? Yup #PressEdConf21 (8/12)https://t.co/NyxAvPYv4B pic.twitter.com/zKmRRdvAbt
— Alan Levine (@cogdog) March 25, 2021

Reach Back to Specific Times

Do you know how many blog posts you wrote in 2019? August of 2019? August 5 of 2019? I do!

Navigate your WordPress past by tacking on the year and/or month/ and/or day to find posts by date #PressEdConf21 (9/12) https://t.co/vEssSupPnK pic.twitter.com/Hp6jxhzXym
— Alan Levine (@cogdog) March 25, 2021

Two Great Taxonomies That Link Great Together

Why not use tags within categories to zero in on your posts? A URL trick makes this easy.

Find tagged posts within categories! Two great taxonomies that taste great together. #PressEdConf21 (10/12) https://t.co/xHqrccix8n pic.twitter.com/DCc0StVtu7
— Alan Levine (@cogdog) March 25, 2021

RSS is For Grandpa (but he is well informed)

RSS feeds from WordPress can do more than show latest posts. Check out what Grandpa knows.

Isn't RSS dead? Not at all. But let Grandpa tell you how to keep your eye on hundreds of WordPress sites, see comment activity in once glance. #PressEdConf21 (11/12) https://t.co/kW9HsQfpUy pic.twitter.com/C06RTvbe8S
— Alan Levine (@cogdog) March 25, 2021

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