How to Create SEO-Friendly URL Slugs (Rules and Examples)

The slug is the last part of a page address, such as how-to-compress-pdf. A clean slug is easier to read, share and rank. The free Text to URL Slug Generator cleans any title for you.

Quick answer

Use lower case words separated by hyphens, remove special characters, keep it short and include the main keyword.

The Text to URL Slug Generator tool on shobfree.com, ready to use in your browser.

Before and after

Best practices

1. Lower case only. Mixed case can create duplicate addresses.
2. Hyphens, not underscores. Search engines treat hyphens as spaces.
3. Short and clear. Three to six words is plenty.
4. Remove stop words such as "the", "and" or "of" when they add nothing.
5. No dates or numbers that will go out of date.
6. No special characters such as &, ?, % or spaces.

Bangla in URLs

Bangla letters in URLs work, but they are turned into long percent codes when copied. For sharing and compatibility, many sites use an English slug even for Bangla pages. The generator lets you keep Bangla letters if you prefer.

Changing a slug

Avoid changing a slug after the page is live. If you must, add a 301 redirect from the old address to the new one so you keep traffic and ranking.

Slugs for tool and guide pages

A tool page can use the tool's plain name, such as compress-pdf. A guide should describe the task, such as how-to-compress-a-pdf. Keeping a pattern across the site makes the structure easy for people and crawlers to understand. Avoid adding the year to evergreen pages, since you would have to change the address when the year changes.

Avoiding duplicates

If two pages could have the same slug, make the second more specific rather than adding a number, for example pdf-to-word-for-scanned-files. Numbers at the end such as -2 look unfinished and suggest duplicate content to readers.

Slug checklist

• All lower case, words separated by hyphens.
• Three to six meaningful words, no filler words.
• No dates, session IDs or random numbers.
• No special characters or spaces.
• One slug for one page; do not reuse a slug.

Moving pages

When a page's address must change, keep the old one working with a 301 redirect, update internal links and tell search engines with your sitemap.

Sources and further reading

• Google Search Central, URL structure best practices: developers.google.com.

Frequently asked questions

Does the slug affect ranking? A little. Its main benefit is clarity for users and for search engines.

What is the best length? Under 60 characters is a good limit.

Should the slug match the title exactly? No. It can be shorter, as long as it describes the page.

Next step

Clean your title with the Text to URL Slug Generator. Check your page text with the Keyword Density Counter.