SEO URL Slugs: Best Practices

URL slugs are the human-readable part of a URL after the domain. A good slug helps search engines understand page content and gives users confidence before clicking.

Slug best practices

• Use lowercase letters only
• Separate words with hyphens, not underscores
• Keep slugs short (3-5 words ideal)
• Include primary keyword naturally
• Remove stop words (a, the, and) when possible
• Never change slugs after publishing without redirects

Examples

• Good: /guides/how-to-format-json
• Bad: /page?id=12345
• Good: /tools/json-formatter
• Bad: /tools/JSON_Formatter_Tool_v2