Default URL structure

While Bolt (and most other) apps don't often present URLs to users, all content on Bolt does in fact still live at the end of the URL, and the structure and style of those URLs can be very important to some customers. 

This doc explains our standard structure and what capabilities we have to change that.

By default, Pugpig URLs look like this:
https://app.vanity.com/2021/05/30/my-story-slug/content.html

Our URLs will always start with your app domain and end in "content.html", but the section in between can have any combination of:

• Published date
• Published time
• Article slug
• Category
• Author

To customise your article URLs in this way, we can do so out of the box with minimal configuration.

Choosing your URL structure

Our suggested URL structure would be - ../story/guid/content.html

• Story in this case refers to your desired way of identifying the content (as opposed to the article title used in our standard structure). It's also helpful to have a prefix for articles to ensure we can filter them correctly if you're using canonical URLs.
• The GUID (Globally Unique IDentifier) should be some reference ID that applies only to this specific content piece and doesn't change.
• Content.html is required as part of Bolt's functionality

This is especially important if you're looking to implement canonical URLs and the redirection service. We will need to agree a URL format with you that appropriately corresponds with your website and that allows you to redirect. For example, a format that includes your unique unchanging story ID such as:
https://app.vanity.com/story/123232354/content.html

Changing your URL structure

Once you've decided and agreed with us what your URL structure will be, let us know and we'll adjust it in the CMS.

We'll change the postname part of the URL structure to reflect what we've agreed with you. 

URL update plugin

We are now able to update the permalinks of all existing in-app articles using our URL update plugin. It works by adjusting the postname (as seen above, the article title by default) to an agreed format which is usually your article ID. We can also send this ID to your analytics so it matches what's used on your website.

As long as either there's a field in your RSS feed where we can get the article ID, or we can reliably extract it from your article permalink then we'll be able to configure and run the plugin.

Additionally it can be used to rewrite inline content links, so if you regularly link to your content within your articles and want those to be converted to app articles, let us know!