I've seen Wordpress create URLs like this one:

http://thefundraisingsite.com/2014/04/0 … our-group/

The folders don't actually exist on the server, yet it is able to render the page. How is it able to do that?

This is one way.
http://goo.gl/

This
http://www.coffeecup.com/forums/website … post234296
Becomes this.
http://goo.gl/5nqnf6

I'm not wanting to shorten a URL. I'm wanting to be able to use the longer seo friendly url like in the one above. The longer URL above doesn't actually exist as folders on the server.

Normally, if a folder and file don't exist on the server, a 404 error page is displayed. However, with Wordpress, it triggers a database call so that the proper page is displayed even though it doesn't digitally exist as a file on the server. That's what I'm wanting to do on a different web site.

Hi Brian
An overview from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_URL

More descriptions and 'how-to' articles:
https://www.google.com/#q=pretty+urls

Brian,

Are you asking how to do that in Wordpress or are you asking how to do that with HTML?

I've used Wordpress since about a year after it was released so I have a 'little' experience with it.

With HTML. I have a non-Wordpress site on which I want to use it.

Oh great! now we know whose brain to pick if we have trouble with WP.

Brian,

What you posted is not an SEO friendly link.

An SEO friendly link would be: http://thefundraisingsite.com/are-scrat … our-group/

The link you posted is actually a 'post link' and not a page link in Wordpress.

In HTML you would name your page with your keyword like say 'gas-grills' or whatever your page is about. Then your link would be: http://domainname.com/gas-grills/ and SEO friendly for that keyword.

I hope that answered your question and if not please let me know and I'll try and clarify.

Anytime Inger, I don't mind at all.

Earnie,

Thanks for the great info!!! Here's what puzzles me about the post links in WP. Considering this URL as an example:
thefundraisingsite.com/2014/04/02/are-scratch-cards-right-for-your-group/

Normally, if you log in with FTP, you would expect to drill down through several folders
root --> 2014 --> 04 --> 02 --> are-scratch-cards-right-for-your-group
and in that folder find a file called index.php (or whatever default you have the server set to recognize).

However, with WP, none of those folders exist. If WP were following standard server setup, it would display a 404 file not found error. However, it somehow uses the folder path
2014/04/02/are-scratch-cards-right-for-your-group/
to know which article to query from the database.

I want to be able to do the same thing. Do you know how?