How to Write SEO-Friendly URL Slugs (With Examples)

The slug is the part of a URL that identifies a specific page: in example.com/blog/how-to-make-filter-coffee, the slug is how-to-make-filter-coffee. It is a small detail, but it shows in search results, in shared links and in browser tabs, and a clear slug helps both people and search engines understand what a page is about before they open it.

What makes a slug SEO-friendly

• Descriptive. It says what the page is about. /filter-coffee-recipe beats /post-4821.
• Short-ish. Three to six meaningful words is a good range. Long slugs get truncated and look spammy.
• Includes the main topic. Using the page's key phrase is a small relevance signal and reassures searchers.
• Lowercase and hyphenated. Google treats hyphens as word separators; underscores join words together. Uppercase letters can create duplicate URLs.
• No special characters. Avoid spaces, accents, apostrophes and symbols that get encoded into ugly strings like %20.
• Stable. It should still make sense in two years.

Good and bad examples

• Bad: /page?id=387&cat=12 — tells nobody anything.
  Good: /cotton-sarees
• Bad: /the-10-best-and-most-amazing-tips-for-how-to-save-money-on-your-electricity-bill-in-2026
  Good: /reduce-electricity-bill-tips
• Bad: /Blog/Filter_Coffee_Recipe
  Good: /blog/filter-coffee-recipe

Stop words: remove most of them

Words like "a", "the", "and", "of" and "to" usually add length without meaning. Removing them keeps slugs short: "how-to-choose-a-laptop-for-students" can become "choose-laptop-for-students". Keep a stop word when removing it changes the meaning or makes the slug awkward, for example "how-to" in tutorials is often worth keeping because people search with it.

Should you put dates and numbers in slugs?

Usually not. A slug like /best-phones-2025 becomes outdated, and changing it later means redirects. Put the year in the title, which you can update freely, and keep the slug timeless: /best-budget-phones. The same applies to list counts: "7 tips" may become "9 tips" next year.

Slugs and folders

The slug is only the last part of the URL; the folders before it matter too. A simple, shallow structure such as /blog/filter-coffee-recipe or /sarees/cotton-sarees tells people where they are on your site. Avoid deep chains like /category/food/drinks/hot/coffee/south-indian/filter-coffee-recipe, and avoid folders that repeat the slug, such as /coffee/coffee-recipes/coffee-recipe. If your CMS adds dates to blog URLs (/2026/10/15/post-name), consider switching to a plain post-name structure for new content — but do not change existing URLs without redirects.

Changing existing slugs: be careful

Changing the URL of a page that already ranks resets some of its history and breaks links unless you redirect. Only change a slug when the benefit is clear — for example an unreadable ID-based URL or a wrong topic. When you do:

1. Add a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one, and test it with the redirect checker.
2. Update internal links to point straight to the new URL.
3. Update your sitemap.

Generate clean slugs instantly

The free slug generator turns any title into a short, lowercase, hyphenated slug without stop words. See how to generate clean URL slugs for blog posts and products for tips on using it, and check the full search result with the SERP preview tool.

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