SEOmediumtechnical

Include keywords in URL slugs

rule · slug-keywords

URL slugs are the human-readable portion of a URL path. Including relevant keywords makes URLs self-describing for both users and search engines, especially when the slug also stays short and clean under URL length rules.

Code Example

Text

/blog/how-to-train-for-a-marathon
/products/wireless-noise-cancelling-headphones
/services/web-design-london
/about/our-team

Why It Matters

Descriptive URL slugs help users and search engines understand page content before visiting. Google's URL structure guidance (opens in a new tab) treats those words as a lightweight relevance hint and a strong UX cue.

❌ Poor Slug Patterns

Text

/p?id=48392                          # Numeric ID, no context
/blog/post-1                         # Sequential number, no topic
/products/SKU-A4B9X                  # Internal code, meaningless to users
/2024/12/25/                         # Date only, no topic
/blog/the-10-best-ways-to-optimize-your-website-for-search-engines-in-2024
# ↑ Too long — trim to core keywords

Slug Guidelines

Guideline	Recommendation
Case	Always lowercase (`/my-page`, not `/My-Page`)
Word separator	Use hyphens (`-`), not underscores (`_`) or spaces
Length	3–5 words; enough to be descriptive, not stuffed
Keyword placement	Put primary keyword early in the slug
Stop words	Omit filler words (`a`, `the`, `of`, `in`) when possible
Special characters	Avoid `%`, `#`, `?`, `&`, `+`, spaces

Google has stated that hyphens are treated as word separators, while underscores join words (so running_shoes is read as one word, running-shoes as two).

Changing Slugs Safely

Identify the new, keyword-optimized slug
Create a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new URL
Update internal links across the site
Update the canonical tag
Update the sitemap
Monitor Google Search Console for crawl errors after the change

Framework Examples

Next.js (file-based routing)

Text

app/blog/[slug]/page.tsx
→ URL: /blog/how-to-improve-core-web-vitals

WordPress

Settings → Permalinks → set to "Post name" (/%postname%/)

This replaces /?p=123 with /post-title/.

Note on Existing URLs

If a URL is already indexed and has backlinks, weigh the SEO benefit of a better slug against the risk of losing link equity during a redirect. For high-traffic pages, the redirect preserves most equity, but monitor rankings after the change.

Exceptions

Necessary utility or compliance pages can be intentionally brief and should not be judged by the same editorial-depth expectations as ranking-focused content.
AI-assisted drafting is not a failure by itself; flag unsupported claims, missing editorial review, or low-originality output instead.
When a page has both trust-signal issues and crawl/index problems, make the page eligible to rank first and then improve the content quality signals.

Standards

Use these references as the standard for the final search-facing HTML, metadata, and crawl behavior.
Check the implementation against Google: Keep a simple URL structure before treating the rule as satisfied.
Check the implementation against Google: URLs and their structure before treating the rule as satisfied.

Verification

Automated Checks

Inspect rendered HTML and HTTP headers to confirm the expected metadata or crawlability signal is present.
Test the affected URL with Google Search Console or equivalent tooling where relevant.
Re-crawl a representative page set after deployment.

Manual Checks

Confirm the change does not create conflicting canonical-url, robots, or structured-data signals.