From Banana Slug To Post-Slugs: A Quick Look at Permalinks

The mascot for the University of Santa Cruz in California is none other than the elusive yet slimy forest creature, the Banana Slug. Yes, you read that right.

Legend has it -- along with a student-wide referendum in the 1980s -- that the slug was chosen to represent the school, as it is the anti-mascot. The banana slug is easy to spot after a heavy rain, seeing how its highlighter yellow exterior puts New Wave leggings to shame. It crawls along the massive trees, peacefully coexisting with the students surrounding it. There is no violent nature, animal captivity or political correctness complications. No, it simply leaves an icky trail of goo behind it, moving on to the next redwood.

Permalinks And Post-Slugs In Blogging

Let us connect this with one of the chief SEO tactics used: “post-slug.” Also known as permalinks, post-slugs are used on blogs in order to change the URL link. For example, a post on banana slugs at UC Santa Cruz in a blog ends up looking like this:

http://www.ucsantacruz.com/?p=432

How is anyone supposed to know that this link has anything to do with banana slugs? In fact, without the proper permalink, the blog is a wasted SEO effort, as search engines will not pick up the important keywords in the link. With a simple change in the blog, the post-slug can look like this:

http://www.ucsantacruz.com/banana-slugs-santa-cruz

This prettier version is the one that bloggers need to use in order to drive traffic. It’s simple and takes only a few seconds more to fix, but the results make an enormous difference. Just as the banana slug slowly drags its neon gastropod self over to the next bit of forest, so your post-slug efforts will drag in new viewers to your site with a few permalink structure tweaks. Except maybe the post-slug will move a little faster.

--Nadia Osman