Permalink Settings
Benecaster controls how episode and show URLs are structured on your site. These settings live at Benecaster → Settings → Permalinks and are also available during the Setup Wizard.
URL Modes
Benecaster supports two URL structures:
Single show (default)
yoursite.com/{episode-prefix}/{episode-slug}
Use single-show mode when you run one podcast on the site. The show prefix field is hidden in this mode.
Multiple shows
yoursite.com/{show-prefix}/{show-feed-slug}/{episode-prefix}/{episode-slug}
Use multi-show mode when you host more than one podcast on the same WordPress installation, or plan to in the future.
The show’s feed slug is set on the individual show — see Show Settings. Each show gets its own segment in the URL.
Episode Prefix
The word that appears before the episode slug. Default: episode.
Changing this to ep gives you yoursite.com/ep/my-interview-with-alice instead of yoursite.com/episode/my-interview-with-alice.
In single-show mode, you can also leave the episode prefix blank — see Episodes at root below.
Episodes at Root
In single-show mode only, leaving the episode prefix blank places episodes directly at the site root:
yoursite.com/{episode-slug}
This is the most minimal URL structure Benecaster supports. The Setup Wizard shows “Leave blank to place episodes directly at the root: yoursite.com/episode-title” as a hint below the episode prefix field.
Collision Guard
Root-mode episodes share their URL namespace with every WordPress page, post, and custom post type on your site. Benecaster runs a two-layer collision check to prevent episodes from conflicting with existing content:
At save time (hard reject) — when you save an episode in root mode, Benecaster scans all WordPress URLs for a match. If any existing page, post, or attachment already uses the same slug, the save is blocked and the editor shows an inline error. You must change the episode slug before saving. The action hook benecaster_permalink_root_collision fires when a collision is detected (see Hooks Reference).
Ongoing notice (post-save conflicts) — a conflict can appear after an episode is published if a new WordPress page or post is created with a matching slug. Benecaster detects this during routine URL checks and displays an admin notice identifying the conflicting episode and page. The notice persists until the conflict is resolved — either rename the episode slug or rename the WordPress page.
Limitations in Root Mode
- Root mode is only available in single-show mode. It is hidden when multiple-shows mode is active.
- The episode prefix field cannot be left blank if any episode slug would collide with a reserved word (same reserved-word rules apply as for named prefixes).
Show Prefix
Only visible in multiple-shows mode. The word that appears before the show’s feed slug. Default: show.
Example with defaults: yoursite.com/show/crypto-curious/episode/ep-100.
Live Preview
Both prefix fields update a live URL preview below them as you type, showing you exactly what your episode URLs will look like before you save.
Validation
Benecaster validates prefix choices against three rules before saving. These are hard blocks — not warnings you can override. A conflicting prefix would silently break your site’s routing.
Reserved words — words that conflict with WordPress, RSS, or podcast infrastructure are rejected: wp-admin, wp-json, feed, rss, benecaster, podcast-feed, account, category, tag, and others in that class. The error message names the specific word that matched.
Page slug conflict — if your prefix matches the slug of an existing WordPress page, Benecaster rejects it. To fix: rename the conflicting page first (Pages → Edit → Permalink), then save your prefix.
Show slug conflict — in multi-show mode, the show prefix cannot match any show’s feed slug. The error names the conflicting show.
301 Redirects
When you change a prefix after episodes already exist, Benecaster automatically generates 301 redirect rules from your old URLs to the new ones. Podcast apps and search engines that already have the old links continue to land on the right episode.
The redirects are applied before WordPress’s own routing, so they work even if WordPress would return a 404 for the old path.
Supported Redirect Types
- Episode prefix change — any mode
- Show prefix change — multi-show mode
- Multi-show → single-show — redirect rules are recorded and applied when the old URL is requested; the rule uses each show’s feed slug to resolve which episode is meant
The single-show → multi-show direction is also recorded, but the redirect cannot be resolved from the URL alone (Benecaster doesn’t know which show to route to without the show segment). A redirect rule is stored for the 1-year cleanup notice, but no automatic redirect fires.
1-Year Cleanup Notice
After a redirect rule has been in place for a year, Benecaster surfaces a dismissible notice in the admin recommending you remove it. By that point, podcast apps and search crawlers will have updated to the new URL, so the old rule is no longer load-bearing.
You can dismiss each notice individually — the redirect stays active until you explicitly delete the rule. Dismissal is per-rule, so removing the notice for one rule does not affect others.
