Should I use a custom post type for microblogging on WordPress?

ByMike

I started a 365-day challenge for my New Year’s Resolution this year. I’m going to write a little tiny micro post every day to create content for this website.

Initially, I created a custom post type for my micro-posts using the Toolset WordPress plugin.

This worked great for me. By calling it a “micro post” or “microblogging”, I didn’t feel the pressure of having to write a polished, SEO-friendly blog post.

The only downside is that you can’t put the date into the microblog post URLs.

WordPress gives you a lot of flexibility in how the website URL is formed. Unfortunately, I think Toolset custom posts only allow a static prefix for their permalinks. In other words, you can’t have the year/month/date show up as part of the custom post website address.

This might not be a problem for you. You probably don’t want the date in your webpage URL address for two reasons:

  1. It dates your content. So, later on, it becomes dreadfully apparent that you’re not updating your website. (I have a client who is currently facing this issue. It looks bad.)
  2. Google likes fresh content. After all, if you’re looking for information, you probably want the latest stuff as opposed to old information. But, if you change the publish date on your blog post, the URL will change. (So, you’ll have to redirect your old URL to your new one.)
  3. From a SEO perspective, you probably don’t want the date in your website page URL anyway. If you can snug those keywords closer to the front of the URL, it probably looks better.

But for me, I want the ability to have the date as part of the micro-post blog post URL.

I’m hoping to have these micro post blog entries document a journey in time. I’m hoping to show the hidden effort behind the success.

So, it looks like I’ll have to use the default WordPress post type which allows me to have the date built into the URL.

No worries. I’ll just use the post-type switching plunging to switch my micro-posts into proper blog posts. Shouldn’t take more than a few seconds to update the journey.