What Is a URL Slug? A Beginner's Guide

A slug is the part of a URL that identifies a specific page in a human-readable way. It usually comes at the end of the address.

Anatomy of a URL

Take this address:

https://www.example.com/blog/how-to-brew-coffee

• https:// is the protocol.
• www.example.com is the domain.
• /blog/ is a folder or category.
• how-to-brew-coffee is the slug.

The term comes from newspaper publishing, where a "slug" was a short internal name given to a story while it was being produced.

Why slugs matter

• Clarity for people. A visitor can tell what a page is about before clicking. Compare /how-to-brew-coffee with /p?id=8472.
• Sharing. Clean slugs look trustworthy in emails, social posts and messages.
• Search engines. Words in the URL give a small hint about the topic, and Google shows URL paths in some search results.

What makes a good slug?

1. Short and descriptive: three to six meaningful words.
2. Lowercase letters only.
3. Hyphens between words.
4. No special characters, spaces or emoji.
5. Stable: it should not need to change later.

Creating slugs quickly

Most content management systems create a slug from your title automatically, but they often include unnecessary words or awkward characters. Paste your title into the URL slug generator to get a clean version, then edit it if needed before publishing.

Set the slug carefully before a page goes live. Changing it later requires a redirect to avoid broken links.

Frequently asked questions

What is a slug in a URL?

What is a slug in a URL? It is the readable last part of the address that identifies one page, such as "best-coffee-makers" in example.com/blog/best-coffee-makers. The slug URL meaning comes from newspaper publishing, where a slug was a story's short working name.

Slug vs URL: what is the difference?

In slug vs URL, the URL is the full address (protocol, domain, folders and slug), while the slug is only the page-specific part at the end. You can change URL slug values without changing the domain.

How to create a URL slug?

How to create a URL slug: paste your page title into our URL slug generator. It lowercases the text, removes symbols and joins words with hyphens. It is a slug maker, SEO URL generator and friendly URL generator, and the slug preview shows the full link before you publish. It works as a string to slug, title to slug and text to URL converter.

What are good URL slug examples?

A good URL slug: /strong-password-tips. A bad URL slug: /Post_ID=4821&cat=7 or /the-10-very-best-amazing-tips-you-must-read-2019. Good url slug examples are short, lowercase, hyphenated and descriptive.