Read one of your page addresses aloud to a friend over the phone. If you have to spell out numbers, symbols or a long string of words, the URL needs work.
URLs are a small part of SEO, but they are one of the few parts you can fix in an afternoon. A clean address helps Google understand a page, helps people decide whether to click, and looks better when it is pasted into an email or shown as a citation in an AI answer. A messy one does the opposite, and the problems build up quietly as a site grows.
Google has described URL words as a lightweight ranking signal. The real gains come from clarity, consistency and avoiding technical mistakes that waste crawl time or split your ranking signals across duplicates. The 15 practices below are grouped by the job they do.
Writing the slug
The slug is the last part of the address, such as /url-structure-seo/. You control it page by page, so start here.
- Keep it short. Aim for three to five words. Google does not set a hard limit, but long addresses get cut off in emails and social posts, and they are harder to read.
- Use one clear keyword. Put the main phrase people would search for in the slug, once. Repeating it, as in /seo/seo-services/seo-audit-seo/, reads as spam to people and adds nothing for Google.
- Separate words with hyphens. Google recommends hyphens because it reads them as spaces. Underscores join words together, so seo_tips can be read as a single word. Spaces are worse, because browsers turn them into %20.
- Stick to lowercase. Web addresses can be case-sensitive, so /Blog/SEO-Tips and /blog/seo-tips can load as two separate pages. Use lowercase everywhere and redirect any capitalised version.
- Trim filler words, but only when the meaning survives. /best-tips-for-seo-in-2026/ becomes /seo-tips/. If cutting a word makes the address confusing, keep the word.
- Keep dates and ID numbers out. A date in the address makes a refreshed post look stale, and changing it later means a redirect. In WordPress, go to Settings, then Permalinks, and choose “Post name”. If your site still uses dates or numbers, our WordPress web design and optimisation service can change this without breaking existing links.
Shaping the structure
- Mirror how your site is organised. A page about boiler servicing might sit at /services/boiler-servicing/. That shows people and crawlers where the page belongs. Keep it to three or four levels, because the address should reflect your categories and not every click a visitor makes.
- Prefer subfolders to subdomains. Google has said either can work. A blog at example.com/blog/ is simpler to manage than blog.example.com, and it keeps the site as one property in your reporting. Use a subdomain only when a separate platform genuinely needs one.
- Choose readable addresses over parameter strings. A URL like /products?cat=4&id=872&s=1 is hard to read, and search filters can create thousands of near-identical versions for Google to crawl. Use plain paths for the pages you want to rank. Keep session IDs out of permanent addresses, and keep tracking codes such as ?utm_source= out of links inside your own site.
- Make the address describe the page, and then leave it alone. A clear path such as /local-seo-for-plumbers/ tells a visitor what to expect. It also gives AI tools a readable link to cite when they quote your content, which matters more as AI search grows. Once a page ranks, resist the urge to tidy its address, because every change carries risk.
Technical hygiene
- Use HTTPS. Google has confirmed it as a ranking signal, and Chrome labels plain HTTP pages as not secure, which puts visitors off before they have read a word. If your site still loads on HTTP, fix this before anything else on this list.
- Pick one version of every address. www or non-www, trailing slash or none: choose one format and redirect the other. Google can treat /page and /page/ as separate URLs, which splits your ranking signals between two copies of the same page. This is one of the most common problems found in a technical SEO audit, and one of the cheapest to fix.
- Add canonical tags where duplicates are unavoidable. Online shops are the usual case. If /shoes?colour=red and /shoes?colour=blue show nearly the same content, a canonical tag tells Google which version to index. Canonicals are a hint and not a command, so do not use them to cover up a poor structure.
Changing and expanding
- Redirect every changed URL with a 301: A 301 is a permanent redirect. It sends visitors and Google from the old address to the new one, and Google has said it passes ranking signals along. Skip it and you lose the old page’s backlinks and history, and visitors hit a 404 error. This is the biggest cause of traffic loss after a redesign. Make a list of old and new addresses before launch, and ask for website support if your site is large. After the change, update your internal links so they point straight to the new address and not through a redirect. Then check Search Console for new errors, which is easier with proper reporting and analytics in place.
- Plan for more than one place or language: If you serve several regions, subfolders such as /uk/ and /de/ keep everything under one domain. Pair them with hreflang tags, which tell Google which version suits which audience. Businesses with several branches can follow the same idea with location pages, such as /locations/preston/, an approach that supports local SEO.
Where to start
You do not need to fix everything at once. Work in this order:
- Move to HTTPS if you have not already.
- Pick one version of your domain and trailing slash format.
- Crawl the site and find duplicate and parameter URLs.
- Fix the slugs on new content, and leave the pages that already rank.
- Redirect anything you must change, and recheck your reports a few weeks later.
If you would rather have someone else check where your URLs stand, get in touch for a free SEO audit.
Graig Upton
Graig Upton is a UK SEO and Google Ads consultant with 23 years of hands-on digital marketing experience. Google certified in Ads, Analytics and Conversions, he has helped businesses ranging from local providers to national brands - including Nando's and Financial Times - dominate search and scale their leads. Based in Preston, working with clients across the UK.