What Is a URL Slug and How to Create a Good One

A clean URL slug helps readers and search engines understand your page at a glance. Learn what a slug is, why it matters for SEO, and how to create one for free.

The slug is the readable part of a URL that identifies a specific page, for example, the what-is-a-url-slug in this article address. It is small, but a good slug improves both usability and SEO.

Why slugs matter

Search engines use the words in a URL as a ranking and relevance signal, and people are more likely to click and share a link they can actually read. Compare /what-is-a-url-slug with /?p=48291; the first tells you exactly what to expect.

What makes a good slug

• Short and descriptive with a few meaningful words.
• Lowercase, with hyphens between words.
• Includes your target keyword.
• No stop words or dates you might regret later.
• Unique across your site.

Create slugs the easy way

Instead of formatting by hand, paste your title into the free URL Slug Generator. It strips punctuation, converts to lowercase and joins words with hyphens to produce a clean, ready-to-use slug.

A word of caution about changing slugs

Once a page is published and indexed, changing its slug breaks the old URL. If you must change it, set up a 301 redirect from the old address to the new one so you keep your rankings and avoid broken links.