URL Structure

This document explains how URLs are organised in DJ Press and how to customise them for your site’s needs.

Types of Content

DJ Press manages three main types of content, each with their own URL structure:

Pages - Static content like “About Us” or “Contact”
Posts - Blog entries organised chronologically
Index pages - Collections of posts organised by date, category, tag, or author

Page

A page is standalone content with a post_type of page. Pages:

Don’t belong to categories or tags
Can have a hierarchical structure with parent pages
Have simple URLs based on their slug
Can be used for static content like “About”, “Contact”, etc.

Post

A post is a blog entry with a post_type of post. Posts:

Belong to categories and can have tags
Are organised chronologically
Have URLs that typically include date information
Form the primary content of your blog

Index

Index pages display collections of posts filtered by specific criteria:

Date-based archives (yearly, monthly, daily)
Category archives
Tag archives
Author archives

Index pages include pagination and typically display truncated post content.

URL Patterns

Single Post

Post URLs follow this pattern:

/{{ POST_PREFIX }}/{{ post_slug }}

The POST_PREFIX setting can include date placeholders and static text:

Example `POST_PREFIX`	Sample URL
`{{ year }}/{{ month }}/{{ day }}` (default)	`/2024/05/20/my-post`
`{{ year }}/{{ month }}`	`/2024/05/my-post`
`blog/{{ year }}`	`/blog/2024/my-post`
`articles`	`/articles/my-post`
(empty string)	`/my-post`

Single Page

Page URLs follow a hierarchical pattern:

/{{ parent_slug }}/{{ parent_slug }}/{{ page_slug }}

Pages can have unlimited nesting levels, with each level represented by its slug:

Page Structure	URL
Page: “About”	`/about`
Page: “Team” (parent: About)	`/about/team`
Page: “Leadership” (parent: Team)	`/about/team/leadership`

Archive Page

Archive URLs display posts from a specific time period:

/{{ ARCHIVE_PREFIX }}/{{ year }}/{{ month }}/{{ day }}

The ARCHIVE_PREFIX is optional (default is empty):

Example	URL	Content
Year archive	`/2024`	All posts from 2024
Month archive	`/2024/05`	All posts from May 2024
Day archive	`/2024/05/20`	All posts from May 20, 2024
With prefix	`/archives/2024`	All posts from 2024

Enable/disable with ARCHIVE_ENABLED (default: True).

Category Page

Category URLs follow this pattern:

/{{ CATEGORY_PREFIX }}/{{ category_slug }}

The CATEGORY_PREFIX is required (default is “category”):

Example	URL	Content
Default	`/category/news`	All posts in the “News” category
Custom prefix	`/topics/news`	All posts in the “News” category

Enable/disable with CATEGORY_ENABLED (default: True).

Author Page

Author URLs follow this pattern:

/{{ AUTHOR_PREFIX }}/{{ username }}

The AUTHOR_PREFIX is required (default is “author”):

Example	URL	Content
Default	`/author/johndoe`	All posts by user “johndoe”
Custom prefix	`/writer/johndoe`	All posts by user “johndoe”

Enable/disable with AUTHOR_ENABLED (default: True).

Tag Page

Tag URLs follow this pattern:

/{{ TAG_PREFIX }}/{{ tag_slug }}

For multiple tags:

/{{ TAG_PREFIX }}/{{ tag_slug }}+{{ tag_slug }}

The TAG_PREFIX is required (default is “tag”):

Example	URL	Content
Single tag	`/tag/python`	Posts tagged with “python”
Multiple tags	`/tag/python+django`	Posts tagged with both “python” and “django”
Custom prefix	`/topics/python`	Posts tagged with “python”

Enable/disable with TAG_ENABLED (default: True).

Special URLs

These special URLs serve specific purposes:

URL Pattern	Description	Setting
`/{{ RSS_PATH }}`	RSS feed of recent posts	`RSS_PATH` (default: “rss”)

URL Resolution Priority

When a user visits a URL, DJ Press determines what content to display using this resolution order:

Special URLs (highest priority)
- RSS feed (/rss by default)
- Any other special URLs configured by plugins
Explicit URL patterns with prefixes (second priority)
- Single post matching post prefix pattern
- Archive pages matching date patterns
- Category pages matching category prefix
- Tag pages matching tag prefix
- Author pages matching author prefix
Pages (lowest priority)
- Any URL not matching the above patterns is treated as a page URL

Conflict Resolution

When URL patterns could match multiple content types, the above priority order determines which content is shown. For example:

/news/

Could potentially be:

A post with slug “news” (if POST_PREFIX is empty)
A page with slug “news”

In this case, the post would be displayed because posts have higher priority than pages in URL resolution.

To avoid conflicts, use distinctive prefixes for your content types:

DJPRESS_SETTINGS = {
    "POST_PREFIX": "blog",     # Posts: /blog/my-post
    "CATEGORY_PREFIX": "topic", # Categories: /topic/news
    "TAG_PREFIX": "tagged",    # Tags: /tagged/python
}

SEO Considerations

URL Structure Best Practices

Use descriptive slugs
- Good: /blog/django-template-guide
- Avoid: /blog/post-12345
Keep URLs consistent
- Once you define your URL structure, avoid changing it to prevent broken links
- If you must change URLs, implement proper 301 redirects
Keep URLs short
- Consider using POST_PREFIX with just the year or year/month instead of full dates
- Example: /2024/django-template-guide vs. /2024/05/20/django-template-guide
Use hyphens for word separation
- Good: /blog/seo-best-practices
- Avoid: /blog/seo_best_practices or /blog/seobestpractices
Leverage canonical URLs
- DJ Press automatically adds canonical URLs to prevent duplicate content issues
- For posts accessible via multiple URLs (like date archives), the single post URL is canonical

Recommended Configurations

For a blog focused on SEO:

DJPRESS_SETTINGS = {
    "POST_PREFIX": "{{ year }}/{{ month }}",  # Shorter URLs with just year/month
    "CATEGORY_PREFIX": "category",            # Clear content type in URL
    "TAG_PREFIX": "tag",                      # Clear content type in URL
    "AUTHOR_PREFIX": "author",                # Clear content type in URL
}

For a documentation site:

DJPRESS_SETTINGS = {
    "POST_PREFIX": "docs",                   # Simple prefix without dates
    "CATEGORY_PREFIX": "section",            # Represents documentation sections
    "TAG_PREFIX": "topic",                   # Represents documentation topics
    "ARCHIVE_ENABLED": False,                # Disable date-based archives
}