The WordPress Permalinks Panel is located under your Settings Panel.
You will see 4 radio buttons with options to choose what permalink structure you want to use for your WordPress website.
To add your own custom permalink structure instead of using 1 of the 3 common WordPress permalink structure options provided to you, you have the 4th radio button option and a text field where you can enter your own custom permalink structure. The name of that text field is Custom Structure.
The optimum suggested WordPress custom permalink structure to enter into that text field box is /%post_id%/%category%/%postname%/ When you enter /%post_id%/%category%/%postname%/ and choose this radio button option and save your settings your posts paths will now look like this www.your-website-name/your-category-name…
I am using this exact particular WordPress custom permalink structure also known as “pretty permalinks” on my WordPress website.
Now to answer your question. When you choose a custom permalink structure, WordPress handles everything for you. You do not need to do anything else once you click Save Settings. The text that you entered into the Custom Structure textbox is written to your core WordPress files that contain your permalink structure information. An .htaccess file is also generated when you click Save Settings. The .htaccess file only contains your website’s base path (root path) and does not contain any information about categories or posts structures or paths.
To locate and view your .htaccess file you will need to access your website via FTP (you need to create an FTP account on your web host before you can access your website via FTP) to see all your files and folders. In your website’s root folder where WordPress is installed you will see a file called .htaccess. If this is a free WordPress.com website than you will NOT be able to access your site via FTP because WordPress is providing free web hosting for you and they do not include FTP access to their server and your WordPress website folders.
Good luck.
Tags: Permalinks htaccess, WordPress Permalinks
Categories: Wordpress Tips - Tricks - Fixes