Just create -- or edit -- any article/page/node that should have a "permanent" URL: near the authoring information is the item "URL Path settings". Expand that entry, and follow the instructions. It's easy to test, of course. In fact, you will see the change take immediate effect on the title bar when you save the changes and the page reloads.

For example, to cause the node for Clackamas County, initially known as "node/18", to be referenced as " http://www.oregonrepublicanparty.org/clackamas", we simply put "clackamas" in that URL path settings field for node 18, and saved the page.

You can think of the "clean URL" as an external, public alias, or shortcut, to the node you have created. The URL path setting is not case sensitive, so a visitor entering "hTtP://wWw.OrEgOnRePuBlIcAnPaRtY.oRg/ClAcKaMaS" would still find the page.

As with any page or article or other node that you create, you will still be assigned a unique node number for the item, even if you do specify a unique URL path setting. For example, the Clackamas county page can still be accessed by its original node number, "http://www.oregonrepublicanparty.org/node/18".
 

Now, not all pages need to be referenced with an external alias using the URL path settings field. It will never be a problem to have pages referenced that way, but Google can still find a page that's referenced by a node number. At one extreme are internal events, like meetings, that certainly are better accessed through the calendar rather than an external alias like "December-Central-Committee-Meeting". At the other extreme are items that are frequently accessed as stand-alone pages, like the events calendar ("calendar"), the blog ("blog"), and the donation page ("donate"). Between those extremes, you'll have to decide whether an external name is useful.

If you do enter a URL path setting, DO NOT USE spaces, or any other non-alphanumeric characters, except perhaps hyphen or underscore. If removing spaces makes the title confusing, substitute a hyphen for the space for readability. For example, "help-us-win" instead of "Help Us WIN!", or "stop-job-killing-taxes-rally-in-pdx" instead of "Stop the £¤&@%* Job Killing Taxes Rally".

Specify an alternative URL by which the node can be accessed. For example, type "about" when writing an about page. Use a relative path and don't add a trailing slash or the URL alias won't work.

Specific Standards

COUNTIES: simply use the name of the county and don't include the word "county". "Hood River" becomes "HoodRiver", of course.

ELECTIONS INFO: preface info with which election and what year, such as "Primary2010". Add a back-slash, then the specific type of info, such as "/Candidates". Thus the new alternative URL for "node/352" is: www.oregonrepublicanparty.org/Primary2010/Candidates

Others?