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

The Slug Best-Practices Checklist

Rather than abstract rules, here's what a good slug actually looks like in practice, with before-and-after examples of the same title turned into a weak slug versus a strong one.

Example 1: A Blog Post Title

Title: "10 Amazing Tips You Need to Know About Growing Tomatoes in 2026!"

Weak slug: 10-amazing-tips-you-need-to-know-about-growing-tomatoes-in-2026 — technically valid, but far too long, includes filler words that don't add SEO value, and repeats "2026" which will look dated in future years.

Strong slug: growing-tomatoes-tips — short, keeps the actual keyword ("growing tomatoes"), drops the number, filler words, and year, and stays well under the ~60 character guideline.

Example 2: A Product Page

Title: "Men's Waterproof Hiking Boots - Size 10 - Brown Leather"

Weak slug: mens-waterproof-hiking-boots-size-10-brown-leather — includes size and color, which are variant-level details better handled by URL parameters or a variant selector, not baked into the base slug.

Strong slug: mens-waterproof-hiking-boots — describes the product itself; size/color can be handled as query parameters or on-page selectors without needing a unique slug per variant.

Example 3: Non-English or Accented Input

Title: "Café Münchën — Our Story"

Weak/broken slug: some slug generators mishandle this and produce something like caf-mnchn-our-story, silently dropping the accented letters entirely rather than converting them.

Strong slug: cafe-munchen-our-story — accented characters are transliterated to their closest plain-letter equivalent instead of being stripped, so the result stays readable and meaningful. Not every free slug tool handles this correctly — it's worth checking before you rely on one for content with international names or terms.

Stop Words: When to Remove Them, When to Keep Them

For most blog content, removing stop words (a, an, the, and, of, to, in, for, on, with) produces a cleaner, shorter slug without losing meaning — "the-best-way-to-learn-python" becomes "best-way-learn-python" with no real loss of clarity. However, some brand or legal contexts intentionally keep the slug closer to the exact title for consistency (e.g. matching an official document title). There's no single right answer — which is why a good slug tool makes stop-word removal a toggle, not a forced default.

Length: The 60-Character Guideline

There's no hard technical limit on slug length, but practical guidance converges around staying under roughly 60 characters. Beyond that, slugs get truncated in search results, become harder to read at a glance, and are more likely to include unnecessary filler words. A live character counter while you're generating a slug helps you catch this before publishing rather than after.

Doing This at Scale

If you're migrating an old site, importing a large batch of content into a new CMS, or just publishing frequently, manually applying these rules to every single title becomes a bottleneck. Our Slug Generator includes a bulk mode specifically for this — paste a full list of titles, one per line, and get back a clean, de-duplicated list of slugs in the same order, ready to paste into a spreadsheet or CMS import.

Conclusion

Good slugs come down to a short checklist applied consistently: lowercase, hyphenated, under ~60 characters, free of filler words and special characters, and correctly handling any accented or non-English text. Apply it by hand for occasional posts, or use a tool with bulk support when you're working through a larger batch.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes a URL slug SEO-friendly?

An SEO-friendly slug is lowercase, uses hyphens as word separators, stays under 60 characters, includes relevant keywords, and avoids stop words and special characters. A slug like /blog/growing-tomatoes-tips is far more effective than /blog/10-amazing-tips-you-need-to-know-about-growing-tomatoes-in-2026.

Should I include my target keyword in the URL slug?

Yes, including your primary keyword in the slug is a best practice. Search engines use the words in the URL slug as a signal for understanding page content, and a relevant slug also builds trust and improves click-through rate when the URL appears in search results.

How do I handle accented characters like é or ü in slugs?

Transliterate accented characters to their closest plain-letter equivalents. For example, "Café" becomes "cafe" and "Münchën" becomes "munchen." This preserves readability and meaning while ensuring the slug works correctly across all browsers and systems without encoding issues.

Can I change a slug after a page is already published?

You can, but it requires care. Changing a slug breaks the old URL, which means you lose any backlinks and search ranking the page had accumulated. If you must change it, set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one to preserve as much SEO value as possible.

What are stop words and should I remove them from slugs?

Stop words are common words like "a," "the," "and," "of," "to," and "in" that add length without contributing SEO value. Removing them produces cleaner, shorter slugs — "best-way-learn-python" instead of "the-best-way-to-learn-python" — with no real loss of clarity for search engines or readers.

Why should I use hyphens instead of underscores in slugs?

Google has explicitly stated that hyphens are treated as word separators while underscores are not. This means seo-friendly-url is read as three separate words, but seo_friendly_url may be treated as a single string. Using hyphens ensures search engines correctly parse each word in your slug.

How long should a URL slug be?

Aim for 3 to 5 meaningful words, ideally under 60 characters. Slugs that are too long get truncated in search results, become harder to read at a glance, and are more likely to contain filler words that dilute the relevance of your actual keywords.

Is it okay to include numbers in URL slugs?

Numbers are fine when they are genuinely part of the topic (e.g., "top-10-javascript-tips"), but avoid including dates, post IDs, or auto-generated numbers that add length without descriptive value. A slug like "growing-tomatoes-tips" is better than "10-amazing-tips-you-need-to-know-about-growing-tomatoes-in-2026."

Should URL slugs be lowercase?

Yes, always use lowercase slugs. URLs are technically case-sensitive, which means /Blog/My-Post and /blog/my-post could be treated as different pages. Mixing case creates confusion and potential duplicate-content issues, so consistently use lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens only.

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