Let’s start with the theory. URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator of the website address on the internet. Usually, website addresses represent a set of symbols written on the most popular languages. However, Latin URLs are more popular. That explains why you should always transliterate links and file names.
What URLs You Should Avoid
Correct URLs show a user that it’s the information he was looking for. It means relevant information. Google uses relevant URLs as one of the ranking factors in search results. However, many website owners ignore basic rules for defining URL. Usually, this happens either due to the lack of knowledge or because website owners delegate this process to the CMS.
Example:
Of course, CMS can fill in URL for you automatically. But these addresses are completely useless for SEO. No one doubts that URLs should be understandable. In the example above, the user sees a chaotic set of characters and can’t understand it.
How To Define The Understandable URL:
- Use keywords (words or phrases) in the SEO slug or titles.
- The perfect URL consists of 3-5 words.
- Use lowercase characters only. Otherwise, the post won’t be indexed.
- Technically, you can use Cyrillic URLs – Cyrillic addresses are understandable for users and displayed correctly. But it’s better to transliterate links, as the search engines represent Cyrillic links like this:
One Cyrillic character equals six symbols. That’s why owners of websites with Cyrillic coverage transliterate links and file names in WordPress. - Don’t waste your time on filling URLs manually. There are plenty of good plugins that can transliterate links and text. Go to the WordPress repository to find the most suitable one. They automatically convert URLs to Latin. And Clearfy is one of the optimization plugins.
This extension is used not only to transliterate links in WordPress but to follow guidelines for effective SEO, too.
How To Transliterate Links In WordPress With A Plugin
Download and install the plugin.
Open Settings => Clearfy menu
=> SEO => Transliteration.
There are several ways to transliterate links from the plugin.
Activate the first option Use transliteration by pressing ON. Now all URLs for new posts will be converted from Cyrillic to Latin.
The Clearfy developers have provided you with tools to convert file names, too. If you haven’t renamed files from Cyrillic to Latin before uploading them to the website, the plugin could do that for you. Just activate the option below:
In case you are using another plugin to transliterate links, activate Force transliteration in Clearfy, so our plugin will do the job correctly.
Convert filenames into lowercase, because sometimes you upload files with mixed register (lowercase and uppercase).
Example: Paul_Atkinson.jpg
The next option is super useful. It redirects from old Cyrillic URLs to the new ones in Latin. Old links (from social media, etc.) keep on bringing traffic to the website, and now you definitely wouldn’t want to lose any users or lower the website’s ranking positions.
Don’t forget to transliterate links for existing posts, categories, etc. The changes won’t affect old files. But you should definitely convert existing posts. Activate the corresponding option in the plugin menu and transliterate links to Latin.
You can extend the existing base of transliteration symbols on your website and create custom rules. A small example for Russian: Ё=Jo,ё=jo,Ж=Zh,ж=zh. It is important to follow the language rules for transliteration. Just enter a pair of values and separate them with a comma.
Conclusion
We’ve shown you how to transliterate links in WordPress automatically. Keep in mind, that understandable URL improves user loyalty. It’s better to avoid Cyrillic symbols in URLs, as each Cyrillic character will be converted to six symbols by the search engines. Let’s summarize: understandable URLs and transliteration of links give you a perfect result and improve your website awareness. Of course, you can stick to changing URLs manually. But what’s the point of doing so, if you can use Clearfy?