SEO URL Slug Best Practices for 2025

Why URL Slugs Matter for SEO

The URL slug appears in search results, gets clicked by users, and is shared across the web. Google uses it as a relevance signal — a slug containing your primary keyword outperforms an equivalent page with a meaningless slug like /p=12345. Good slugs also get more clicks in search results because users can see what the page is about before clicking.

The 7 Rules of Good URL Slugs

• Hyphens, not underscores: Google treats hyphens as word separators. word-counter = two searchable words. word_counter = one unsearchable word.
• Lowercase only: URLs are case-sensitive on most servers. Mixed case creates duplicate content risks.
• Include your primary keyword: The most important on-page SEO signal after title and H1.
• Remove stop words: "a", "the", "and", "of", "in" — they add length without value.
• Keep it under 60 characters: Longer slugs get truncated in search results.
• No special characters: Except hyphens. Avoid ?, =, &, %, +, @, #.
• No dates unless evergreen is not the goal: "best-phones-2025" becomes stale; "best-phones" stays relevant.

Good vs Bad Slug Examples

When to Change an Existing Slug

Changing a slug breaks existing links and requires a 301 redirect. Only change slugs when: (1) the current slug contains embarrassing errors, (2) the page has no backlinks yet, or (3) the SEO gain is so significant it outweighs the redirect cost. Always implement proper 301 redirects — never let old URLs return 404.