What Makes a Good URL Slug for SEO?
2026-06-03 · 4 min read
A clean slug helps users and search engines understand a page before they open it. Here are the rules worth following.
The slug is the human-readable part of a URL after the domain — the "what-makes-a-good-url-slug" in this page's address. A well-formed slug improves click-through, accessibility, and how clearly a page communicates its topic.
Keep it short and descriptive
Aim for three to five meaningful words. Include your primary keyword, but drop filler. "/how-to-write-a-great-url-slug-for-your-website-in-2026" is worse than "/url-slug-best-practices".
Hyphens, not underscores
Search engines treat hyphens as word separators but historically treated underscores as joiners. Use hyphens so "blue-widgets" is read as two words.
Lowercase and ASCII only
Mixed-case URLs can create duplicate-content issues on case-sensitive servers. Stick to lowercase, and transliterate accents (café becomes cafe) and drop punctuation so the URL is clean and portable.
Once a page is live and indexed, avoid changing its slug. If you must, set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to preserve rankings and existing links.
Generate a clean slug
The Slug Generator turns any title into a lowercase, hyphenated, accent-free slug automatically — paste a headline and copy the result.