You’ve seen them a thousand times. You’re browsing a site, you click a link, and the address bar changes. Instead of some garbled mess of numbers and random question marks, you see something like /how-to-bake-sourdough/. That little bit of text at the end of the URL is the slug. It’s the human-readable part of the web address that tells both people and search engines exactly what the page is about before they even see the content.
Slugs matter. Honestly, they matter more than most people realize when they're first setting up a WordPress site or a custom blog. If you leave your slugs as ?p=12345, you’re basically leaving money on the table. It’s not just about aesthetics; it’s about clarity.
What is a slug in the real world of SEO?
In technical terms, a slug is the specific part of a URL that identifies a particular page on a website in a format that is easy to read. Usually, it’s the very last part of the URL string. For example, if the full URL is https://example.com/blog/what-is-a-slug, the slug is just what-is-a-slug.
Most modern Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress, Shopify, or Ghost generate these automatically based on your title. But "automatic" doesn't always mean "good." If your title is "10 Reasons Why I Absolutely Love My New Golden Retriever Puppy and Why You Should Get One Too," an automatic slug might be forty words long. That’s a nightmare. It’s messy. It gets cut off in search results. It looks like spam when you share it on text or Slack.
A good slug is short. It’s descriptive. It uses hyphens to separate words. Why hyphens? Because Google’s own documentation—and legacy advice from folks like Matt Cutts—has historically treated hyphens as word separators, while underscores are often treated as part of the word itself. If you use my_new_post, Google might see it as one giant word. If you use my-new-post, it sees three distinct keywords.
Why you should actually care about your URLs
Let’s talk about the user experience for a second. Imagine you’re on social media and you see two links. One is site.com/post/98234-asdf and the other is site.com/best-running-shoes. Which one are you clicking? You’ve already subconsciously decided the second one is safer and more relevant. That’s "link trust."
Search engines use the slug as a ranking signal. It’s a minor one compared to things like backlinks or high-quality content, but in a competitive niche, every little bit helps. When a keyword appears in the slug, it helps Google understand the topical relevance of the page. It’s a context clue.
The mistake of over-optimization
Some people go crazy with slugs. They try to cram every single keyword into that tiny string of text. This is a bad move. If your slug is best-cheap-affordable-fast-running-shoes-for-men-and-women-2026, it looks desperate. It looks like a bot wrote it.
Google’s systems are smarter now. They look for "keyword stuffing." Keeping it to 3-5 words is usually the sweet spot. You want it to be punchy. You want it to be memorable.
How to craft a slug that doesn't suck
First off, get rid of "stop words." These are the "a," "the," "and," "in," and "of" types of words. They add length without adding meaning. If your title is "The Secret to Making a Great Cup of Coffee," your slug shouldn't be /the-secret-to-making-a-great-cup-of-coffee/.
Try /make-great-coffee/.
See the difference? It’s cleaner. It gets straight to the point.
Another tip: stay lowercase. Technically, URLs are case-sensitive on some servers (like Linux-based ones). If you have a slug like /My-Page/ and someone types /my-page/, they might get a 404 error. Standardizing everything to lowercase avoids that headache entirely.
Don't change slugs once they are live
This is the golden rule. If you publish a page and Google indexes it, that URL is now its home. If you change the slug later because you thought of a "cooler" one, you’ve just broken every link that pointed to that page. Your social media shares? Broken. Your internal links? Broken.
If you absolutely must change a slug, you have to set up a 301 redirect. This tells the browser and the search engine, "Hey, this page moved permanently to this new address." Without that redirect, you lose all the SEO "link juice" you’ve built up. It’s a quick way to tank your traffic.
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Slugs in different platforms
Every platform handles this differently. In WordPress, you find it in the "Permalink" settings. You can set a global structure, but you can also edit the slug for each individual post in the sidebar of the editor.
Shopify is a bit more rigid. They often force a structure like /products/your-product-slug or /pages/your-page-slug. You can't change the /products/ part easily, but you have full control over what comes after it.
If you're using a static site generator like Jekyll or Hugo, the slug is often determined by the filename of your Markdown file or a "slug" variable in the front matter. It’s very manual, which is actually great for control freaks.
Common misconceptions about slugs
A lot of "SEO gurus" will tell you that the slug is a massive ranking factor. It's not. It's a "nice to have." If your content is garbage, a perfect slug won't save you. Conversely, if your content is amazing, a weird slug probably won't keep you from ranking, though it might hurt your click-through rate.
Another myth is that you need to include the date in the slug. Unless you're a major news outlet like The New York Times where chronological filing is vital, don't put dates in your slugs. Why? Because if you write an article called "Best Laptops 2025" and the slug is /best-laptops-2025/, it looks outdated the moment 2026 hits. If you keep the slug as /best-laptops/, you can update the content every year without changing the URL.
Evergreen content needs evergreen URLs.
The technical side of things
Characters matter. You should stick to alphanumeric characters and hyphens. Avoid emojis. Just because you can put an emoji in a URL doesn't mean you should. They get converted into long strings of "percent-encoding" (like %F0%9F%98%80) which looks absolutely terrifying to a normal user.
Special characters like brackets, semicolons, and plus signs can also cause issues. Some browsers interpret them differently, and they can break certain scripts or tracking parameters. Keep it boring. Boring is safe. Boring works.
Summary of best practices
Basically, if you want your site to look professional and perform well in search, you need to be intentional with your slugs. Stop letting your software decide for you. Take those five seconds before you hit "publish" to check that the URL makes sense.
- Keep it under 60 characters. Anything longer usually gets truncated in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
- Match the intent. If the page is a contact page, make the slug
/contact/. Don't get fancy with/reach-out-to-our-team-today/. - Use hyphens. No underscores. No spaces.
- Lowercase only. It's the web standard for a reason.
- Think long-term. Avoid numbers or years that will make the post feel "old" in twelve months.
Actionable steps for your website
Right now, go to your most popular blog post. Look at the URL. Is it clear? Does it have unnecessary words like "a" or "the"? If it's already ranking well, do not change it unless you are comfortable managing 301 redirects and potentially seeing a temporary dip in traffic.
For your next post, follow this workflow:
- Write your headline.
- Draft your content.
- Look at the auto-generated slug.
- Strip out the fluff.
- Ensure the primary keyword is near the beginning.
- Verify there are no weird characters or capital letters.
This isn't rocket science, but it's the kind of fundamental hygiene that separates a hobbyist site from a professional one. It makes your site easier to navigate, easier to share, and easier for Google to categorize. It's a win for everyone involved.
Make sure your "Permalinks" settings in your CMS are set to "Post Name" rather than "Plain" or "Numeric." This is the single biggest change you can make to ensure every slug you create starts from a place of readability rather than database jargon.
Focus on the user. If the user can look at the slug and know exactly what's on the page, you've won. It’s about building a predictable, clean experience that doesn't surprise the visitor in a bad way. Consistent, clean slugs are a hallmark of a well-maintained site. Keep it simple, keep it descriptive, and keep it consistent. That is how you handle slugs like a pro.