Course URL structure

Course and lesson addresses are configurable, and changing them later breaks every link already shared. Decide this before publishing.

What you can set

Three options, on Settings → Permalinks, in the Custom post types section:

The two structures

Flat — the default:

/course/introduction-to-baking/
/lesson/making-a-starter/

Courses and lessons are separate branches. A lesson's address says nothing about which course it belongs to.

Nested — with the child structure enabled:

/course/introduction-to-baking/
/course/introduction-to-baking/making-a-starter/

A lesson lives under its course. The address itself communicates the structure.

Which to choose

Nested is the better default for a course platform:

• the address tells a student — and a search engine — what the lesson belongs to;
• a shared lesson link carries its context;
• the URL matches the mental model of a course containing lessons.

Flat is worth keeping when:

• lessons will move between courses;
• the site already has published lesson URLs you cannot break;
• something else on the site depends on the existing structure.

Choosing the slugs

Use the word your audience uses. course and lesson are fine; training, programme, module, curso, leccion may fit better.

Two constraints:

• lowercase, no spaces;
• do not collide with an existing page or another content type's slug.

Change it before you publish

Whichever you choose, do it before students have links. After a change:

1. Save the slug settings.
2. Open Settings → Permalinks and save once, to refresh the rewrite rules.
3. Open a course and a lesson and confirm both resolve.

If URLs return not-found errors after any structural change, re-saving permalinks is the fix.

Changing it later

If you must, treat it as a migration:

• every existing course and lesson URL changes;
• links in emails, messages and documents break;
• search engines drop the old addresses until they re-index;
• any redirect from old to new is your responsibility, using whatever redirect tooling the site has.

See Migrate course URLs.

What is not configurable

• There is no course archive URL. Courses have no automatic listing page; you build one with the theme's own tools. See The course archive.
• Courses and lessons are excluded from the site's menu selection, so you link them from pages and content rather than adding them to a navigation menu directly.

Verify

1. Set the slugs and the child-structure option.
2. Re-save permalinks.
3. Open a course and confirm its address.
4. Open a lesson and confirm its address matches the structure you chose.
5. Confirm the back link from a lesson returns to the course.
6. Confirm the outline's lesson links open the right lessons.