Will adding a "blog" page screw up my URL's?

[Sutra]

Right now my homepage displays a list of my latest blog posts, with the newest appearing at the top (basically the standard blog homepage layout). Have over 1000 posts now and the content between the categories differs quite a bit.

I want to make it easier for the users to find certain things on the home page like product reviews and info articles rather than viral stuff. So I'm thinking about organizing the home page to feature the most important categories first. I'm using Thrive Themes and it is possible to do this but I have to create a page called "Home" and another page called "Blog", then adjust the Wordpress Reading settings to show the Front page as the new "Home" page, and the Posts page as the new "Blog" page.

Example:

Right now my URL structure is: domain.com/category/post

But if I follow the above instructions, won't that make my URL structure like this: domain.com/blog/category/post?

I feel like I'm misunderstanding simple here, hah, but won't changing it like that completely fuck my current URL's?

 

[Jitsiereveld]

I think you should be safe making that change as long as you set your Permalinks accordingly. Match the same structure you have now then test to make sure. I completely understand what you are trying to do and each individual blog post URL should remain the same. The only change is which page you are specifying as your home page, right?

After you change the structure, go to Settings > Permalinks and make sure your URL structure matches what it used to be. WordPress should be smart enough to know and not make the changes but the Permalink settings is where those would be set at.

 

[Nat]

No, it won't.

Its simply going to list all posts under /blog/, its not going to append that to the urls. Your urls will stay domain.com/category/post

 

[Ryuzaki]

When you leave "Your Latest Posts" selected, Wordpress uses index.php and whatever loop was put in there by the theme creator. 99% of the time it includes all categories and has no settings included beyond that so the "Reading" settings control the number of posts shown, etc.

When you choose "A Static Homepage," you can create a literal "Page" and then choose it to be displayed as the homepage. This doesn't always include a blog post loop unless you design it that way or the theme creator has a page template for it. For the most part, it means a content based page. That's for "Front Page."

For "Posts Page," it typically designates a separate page that you create (so you choose the URL like /blog or /news) that includes a loop to show blog posts. It's so you can separate your homepage from the post loop. It does NOT affect your URL structures. It only serves as an alternative page to display the post loop.

All of this works only if the theme is designed to accommodate it. Otherwise, you can do some easy copy-paste work to create a new page template for it (duplicate the homepage as a page-template and then choose it on your new "Blog" page).

 

[Sutra]

Thanks for the breakdown, @Ryuzaki I appreciate it. Now I'm clear on it.

Thanks for your replies too, @Jitsiereveld and @Nat.