UPDATE
When first posting this, I didn't understand the problem. When I removed the index.php from the urls with a .htaccess file (http://ellislab.com/expressionengine/user-guide/urls/remove_index.php.html), all the templates other than the homepage all gave 404s.
ORIGINAL POST
I've create a list of the channel entries, but when you click on a link it sends you to the url example.com/title-permalink= and throws up a 404.
I've tried to visit the single entry pages by manually putting in the url but it doesn't work either.
Here's the simple code on the index page.
<ul>
{exp:channel:entries channel="essays"}
<li><a href="title-permalink="site/essay"}">{title}</a></li>
{/exp:channel:entries}
</ul>
And the single entry page.
{exp:channel:entries channel="essays"}
<h1>{title}</h1>
{body}
{/exp:channel:entries}
I haven't had this problem before. It seems like it must be really simple. What am I missing? Something in the settings?