What Is a URL Slug? A Practical Guide to Clean Page URLs
Learn what a slug is, how to make one readable, and why changing a published URL requires care.
A URL slug is the human-readable part of a page address that identifies the resource. In example.com/tools/percentage-calculator/, the slug is percentage-calculator.
A good slug is readable at a glance
Use ordinary words, lowercase letters, and a consistent separator. Someone seeing the URL in an email or search result should have a reasonable idea what the page is about.
Shorter is often clearer
A headline can be descriptive and conversational while the URL stays compact. “A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Calculating Percentages” can use calculate-percentages without losing meaning.
Use hyphens between words
Hyphens are the normal separator for public web URLs and are visually easy to scan. Avoid spaces, which browsers encode, and avoid unnecessary punctuation.
Do not stuff keywords into the URL
A slug such as best-free-percentage-calculator-online-percentage-tool is harder to read and does not make weak content useful. Describe the page once and let the content do the rest.
Dates can make evergreen content awkward
Use a date in the slug when the date defines the content, such as an annual report. For evergreen guides, a date can make a continually updated article look obsolete.
Changing a published slug has consequences
The old URL may already exist in bookmarks, search indexes, analytics, social posts, or links from other websites. If you change it, use a permanent redirect from the old URL to the most equivalent new URL.
Slugs in WordPress and other CMS platforms
Most content-management systems generate a slug from the title automatically, but you can usually edit it before publishing. It is worth reviewing long or awkward auto-generated slugs before a page starts collecting links.