Step One: Change WordPress’ Default Permalink Structure

By default, WordPress uses a permalink structure that looks something like http://example.com/?p=00; in order for this “hack” to work, you’ll need to change it to a custom structure (which is recommended for SEO purposes, anyways). I’ve changed my structure to http://example.com/post-title, but you can use any custom structure that you’d like.

At this point, if you wanted to use http://example.com/?p=00 (where 00 is the numerical ID of the post) as your short link, you could—WordPress will automatically forward it to the post’s custom permalink.

Step Two: Modify the .Htaccess File to Create Custom Short URL

Open up the .htaccess file in WordPress’ main directory. It should look something like this:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

Directly after the line RewriteBase /, add the following:

RewriteRule ^s/([0-9]+)$ ?p=$1 [R=301,L]

Save the file. You’ll now be able to access your posts by using the short URL http://example.com/s/00. If you’re not a fan of the s/ in the URL, you can change it to almost anything. For example, using…

RewriteRule ^x([0-9]+)$ ?p=$1 [R=301,L]

…instead will change your short URL to http://example.com/x00. The only real restriction is that a non-numerical character should always prelude the ID number of the post, or problems will eventually arise with your yearly and monthly archives.