[fel64]

Permalinks are a fixed URL for accessing the same resource.

http://example.com/blog/?page=2#post-214 for example is _not_ a permalink because page 2 will probably change and #post-214 may no longer be on it. http://example.com/blog/?p=214 _is_ a permalink because post 214 will always be at /blog/?p=214. Pretty permalinks are permalinks that don’t look dynamic: no ?, = or & in there. It looks like a bunch of directories. For example, instead of /blog/?page=2 you’d have /blog/page/2, instead of /blog/?p=214 you’d have /blog/post/214 or even /blog/2006/11/24/why-my-kittens-suck.