Include keywords in URL slugs

Descriptive URL slugs help users and search engines understand page content before visiting — a URL like /buy-running-shoes-women communicates topic intent that /products/4832 does not.

Quick Reference

• URL slugs should contain the primary keyword of the page in lowercase, hyphen-separated words
• Avoid numeric IDs (/page?id=12345), random strings, or meaningless paths (/p/a/) in public URLs
• Keep slugs concise: 3–5 meaningful words is typical; avoid keyword stuffing
• Google uses URL words as a weak ranking signal and users use them to assess page relevance before clicking

Check

Crawl the site and examine URL paths. Flag URLs that contain: numeric IDs only, random strings, session tokens, dates without a descriptive slug, or overly generic words (/page, /item, /post). Verify slugs are lowercase and hyphen-separated.

Fix

Rewrite slugs to include the page's primary keyword in natural language. Use lowercase letters and hyphens as word separators. Set up 301 redirects from old URLs to new slugs. Update internal links, sitemaps, and canonical tags.