{"id":36407,"date":"2020-05-21T12:27:07","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T17:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/?p=36407"},"modified":"2023-10-05T03:04:32","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T08:04:32","slug":"seo-friendly-urls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/seo-friendly-urls\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Create SEO-Friendly URLs (Step-by-Step)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intro-txt\">Google talks about the importance of using simple, friendly URLs in <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/answer\/7451184?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">their SEO starter guide<\/a>, but how do you do&nbsp;that?<\/div>\n<p>Let\u2019s start with the good news: creating URLs for SEO isn\u2019t rocket science.<\/p>\n<p>If you were to describe your page in a few words and replace the spaces with hyphens, that would usually be \u201cgood enough\u201d for&nbsp;SEO.<\/p>\n<p>But you\u2019d probably prefer not to take a stab in the dark. So, below, we\u2019ll run through a simple process for creating optimized URL slugs and a few best practices for the rest of the&nbsp;URL.<\/p>\n<p>But first, let\u2019s make sure we understand how URLs are constructed.<\/p>\n<div class=\"hub-link\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Beginner's guide to on-page SEO\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/svg\/3.svg\"><div class=\"hl-title\">New to on-page SEO? Check out&nbsp;our<\/div><div class=\"hl-content\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/on-page-seo\/\" target=\"_blank\">Beginner\u2019s guide to on-page SEO<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"The anatomy of a URL\" data-section=\"anatomy-of-a-url\">\n<h2>The anatomy of a&nbsp;URL<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>URLs consist of many&nbsp;parts.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"880\" class=\"wp-image-36449\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/the-anatomy-of-a-url-4.png\" alt=\"the anatomy of a url 4\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/the-anatomy-of-a-url-4.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/the-anatomy-of-a-url-4-435x425.png 435w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/the-anatomy-of-a-url-4-768x751.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>For SEO, the most important part is arguably the slug. You have to choose one of these every time you create a page or&nbsp;post.<\/p>\n<p>So let\u2019s start there, and then we\u2019ll cover a few <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/seo-best-practices\/\">SEO best practices<\/a>&nbsp;for the rest of the&nbsp;URL.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"How to create an SEO-friendly URL slug\" data-section=\"seo-friendly-url-slug\">\n<h2>How to create an SEO-friendly URL&nbsp;slug<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>There\u2019s rarely much point changing existing URL slugs as it takes too much time. You\u2019re also likely to do more harm than&nbsp;good.<\/p>\n<p>So let\u2019s focus on new posts and&nbsp;pages.<\/p>\n<p>If you did <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/seo\/keyword-research\" data-ahr=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/keyword-research\/\">keyword research<\/a>&nbsp;and created content around that keyword, <a href=\"#add-keyword-modifiers\">jump to step 6<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you created your page without doing keyword research (which is never a good idea if you want to rank), follow the steps in&nbsp;order.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><a href=\"#start-with-your-page-title\">Start with your page&nbsp;title<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#remove-special-characters\">Remove special characters<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#remove-numbers\">Remove numbers<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#remove-superfluous-information\">Remove superfluous information<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#boil-it-down-to-a-keyword\">Boil it down to a keyword<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#add-keyword-modifiers\">Add keyword modifiers (optional)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#make-it-readable\">Make it readable (optional)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#make-it-lowercase\">Make it lowercase<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#replace-spaces-with-hyphens\">Replace spaces with hyphens<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3 id=\"start-with-your-page-title\">1. Start with your page&nbsp;title<\/h3>\n<p>Most page titles make perfectly optimized URLs with a bit of modification. So let\u2019s start here and run through a series of steps to get the best possible URL slug for&nbsp;SEO.<\/p>\n<p>For the purposes of this article, we\u2019ll use one of our own articles titled:<\/p>\n<p><code>How to Craft the Perfect SEO Title Tag (Our 4-Step Process)<\/code><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"remove-special-characters\">2. Remove special characters<\/h3>\n<p>Have you ever seen a URL with backslashes () or square brackets&nbsp;([])?<\/p>\n<p>Probably not, because these are <a href=\"https:\/\/perishablepress.com\/stop-using-unsafe-characters-in-urls\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unsafe characters<\/a>&nbsp;that don\u2019t belong in&nbsp;URLs.<\/p>\n<p>You should remove these for obvious reasons, but it\u2019s also best practice to remove other special characters like commas, colons, semicolons, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what Google\u2019s John Mueller <a href=\"https:\/\/www.seroundtable.com\/google-avoid-using-special-characters-in-urls-21334.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">says<\/a>&nbsp;about these:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I generally recommend avoiding special characters like commas, semicolons, colons, spaces, quotes etc. in URLs, to help keep things simple. URLs like that are often harder to automatically link (when someone posts in a forum or elsewhere), and hard for us to recognise correctly when we parse text content to try to find new&nbsp;URLs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So let\u2019s remove all characters not in the alphabet\u2014although we\u2019ll keep the spaces in for&nbsp;now.<\/p>\n<p><code>How to Craft the Perfect SEO Title Tag Our 4 Step Process<\/code><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"remove-numbers\">3. Remove numbers<\/h3>\n<p>You\u2019ll notice that our post is a four-step process and that this number is in the&nbsp;title.<\/p>\n<p>This is completely fine because a title is easily changed. If we update the post one day and add a fifth step, we can easily change the title of the&nbsp;page.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"601\" height=\"88\" class=\"wp-image-36455\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/title-change-2.gif\" alt=\"title change 2\"><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a different ball game with&nbsp;URLs.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll have to redirect to a new URL whenever you change the number of items in the page or post to keep it current.<\/p>\n<p>Redirecting a page or post usually isn\u2019t a huge deal. WordPress does it automatically when you change the slug. However, it\u2019s easy to forget to update the URL number when you update things, which leads to this kind of issue in the search results:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1518\" height=\"276\" class=\"wp-image-36448\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/2-incongruent-title-url-2.png\" alt=\"2 incongruent title url 2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/2-incongruent-title-url-2.png 1518w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/2-incongruent-title-url-2-680x124.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/2-incongruent-title-url-2-768x140.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1518px) 100vw, 1518px\"><\/p>\n<p>A better solution is to negate numbers in the URL altogether. That way, you won\u2019t have to update the URL when you make minor changes to the&nbsp;page.<\/p>\n<p>So let\u2019s remove the number from our potential URL:<\/p>\n<p><code>How to Craft the Perfect SEO Title Tag Our Process<\/code><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"remove-superfluous-information\">4. Remove superfluous information<\/h3>\n<p>Google says it\u2019s good practice to make URLs as simple as possible, and there are likely a couple of reasons for&nbsp;that.<\/p>\n<p>First, visitors may be intimidated by extremely long&nbsp;URLs.<\/p>\n<p>Second, long URLs often get truncated in the search results.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"289\" class=\"wp-image-36439\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/3-url-truncation-2.png\" alt=\"3 url truncation 2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/3-url-truncation-2.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/3-url-truncation-2-680x123.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/3-url-truncation-2-768x139.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/3-url-truncation-2-1536x277.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"><\/p>\n<p>So let\u2019s remove anything we don\u2019t need from our potential URL.<\/p>\n<p>Note that you\u2019ll have to use common sense for this part. The aim isn\u2019t to make your URL so short that it no longer accurately describes its content. It\u2019s to remove unnecessary words and phrases.<\/p>\n<p>In our case, this is probably just everything that was in the brackets (\u201cour [4-step] process\u201d)<\/p>\n<p><code>How to Craft the Perfect SEO Title Tag<\/code><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"boil-it-down-to-a-keyword\">5. Boil it down to a keyword<\/h3>\n<p>Most titles naturally contain keywords, so what you\u2019re probably left with at this stage is a simplified, keyword-rich version of your&nbsp;title.<\/p>\n<p>While this might make perfect sense to use (and feel free to do so if that\u2019s the case), it often won\u2019t be very succinct.<\/p>\n<p>As we already discussed, this can lead to long URLs that get truncated in search results. The additional context can also be an issue should you ever want to update the&nbsp;page.<\/p>\n<p>For example, we had a post with the slug \/basic-guide-anchor-text\/. When we updated this post, we added a lot of information. This made the guide not-so-basic, and we had to redirect it to a more appropriate slug.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1115\" class=\"wp-image-36443\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/4-anchor-text-post-2.jpg\" alt=\"4 anchor text post 2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/4-anchor-text-post-2.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/4-anchor-text-post-2-610x425.jpg 610w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/4-anchor-text-post-2-768x535.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/4-anchor-text-post-2-1536x1070.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"><\/p>\n<p>So, the next step is to find the keyword that represents the most popular way people search for your page\u2019s topic.<\/p>\n<p>To do this, install and activate <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/seo-toolbar\">Ahrefs\u2019 SEO toolbar<\/a>, then Google your potential URL. Look for a similar page to yours in the results that also gets a decent amount of organic traffic.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1256\" class=\"wp-image-36442\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/5-top-ranking-pages-traffic-2.jpg\" alt=\"5 top ranking pages traffic 2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/5-top-ranking-pages-traffic-2.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/5-top-ranking-pages-traffic-2-541x425.jpg 541w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/5-top-ranking-pages-traffic-2-768x603.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/5-top-ranking-pages-traffic-2-1536x1206.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"recommendation\"><div class=\"recommendation-title\">IMPORTANT<\/div><div class=\"recommendation-content\">\n<p>If the pages in the search results aren\u2019t getting traffic, your page is likely about a topic with no search traffic potential. Because nobody is searching for what your page is about, it\u2019ll be hard to get organic traffic\u2014regardless of how well you optimize the&nbsp;URL.<\/p>\n<p>Avoid this mistake in the future by doing keyword research beforehand.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Hit the \u201cKW\u201d link to see what keywords the page ranks for in <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-explorer\">Ahrefs\u2019 Site Explorer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1516\" height=\"262\" class=\"wp-image-36454\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/6-title-tags-post-traffic-2.png\" alt=\"6 title tags post traffic 2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/6-title-tags-post-traffic-2.png 1516w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/6-title-tags-post-traffic-2-680x118.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/6-title-tags-post-traffic-2-768x133.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1516px) 100vw, 1516px\"><\/p>\n<p>Look down the list for the most relevant keyword that matches your content.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"927\" class=\"wp-image-36441\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/7-organic-keywords-report-2.png\" alt=\"7 organic keywords report 2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/7-organic-keywords-report-2.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/7-organic-keywords-report-2-680x394.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/7-organic-keywords-report-2-768x445.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/7-organic-keywords-report-2-1536x890.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"><\/p>\n<p>If we were doing this for our post about <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/title-tag-seo\/\">title tags<\/a>, it would probably be:<\/p>\n<p><code>title tag<\/code><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"add-keyword-modifiers\">6. Add keyword modifiers (optional)<\/h3>\n<p>Using an exact-match keyword for your URL slug often makes sense, but not always. Sometimes you\u2019ll find that it lacks descriptiveness.<\/p>\n<p>A simple way to solve this is to add keyword modifiers.<\/p>\n<p>Keyword modifiers are related words that add context to your URL. You can find them in the <strong>Organic Keywords <\/strong>report that we used in the previous step.<\/p>\n<p>For example, if we look at the report for our competing page about title tags, we see \u201cseo\u201d and \u201chtml\u201d pop up a few&nbsp;times.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1412\" class=\"wp-image-36458\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/8-seo-html-modifiers-2.png\" alt=\"8 seo html modifiers 2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/8-seo-html-modifiers-2.png 1000w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/8-seo-html-modifiers-2-301x425.png 301w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/8-seo-html-modifiers-2-768x1084.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\"><\/p>\n<p>It would make sense to include one or both of these in our&nbsp;URL.<\/p>\n<p>There are no hard and fast rules to the way you do this. It\u2019s a case of using common sense. For example, any of these URLs would work for our&nbsp;post:<\/p>\n<p><code>SEO title tag<\/code><br>\n<code>HTML title tag<\/code><br>\n<code>title tag SEO<\/code><br>\n<code>HTML title tag SEO<\/code><\/p>\n<p>Just don\u2019t stuff keywords like&nbsp;this:<\/p>\n<p><code>HTML meta title tag SEO<\/code><\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the one I chose for our&nbsp;post:<\/p>\n<p><code>title tag SEO<\/code><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"make-it-readable\">7. Make it readable (optional)<\/h3>\n<p>Maybe it\u2019s just me, but some URLs just seem more digestible than others.<\/p>\n<p>Take the ideas above. I would argue that \/seo-title-tag\/ makes more sense than \/html-title-tag-seo\/. Why? I think it\u2019s because the former makes sense when used in a sentence, whereas the latter is just a random string of&nbsp;words.<\/p>\n<p>So, I often try to make URLs readable by adding conjunctions or pluralizing.<\/p>\n<p>For our post about title tags, I didn\u2019t do this because \u201ctitle tag seo\u201d seemed to read perfectly fine.<\/p>\n<p>However, for our post about the <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/best-seo-plugins-for-wordpress\/\">best WordPress plugins for SEO<\/a>, the most fitting keyword was \u201cbest seo plugin wordpress.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1182\" height=\"662\" class=\"wp-image-36450\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/9-best-seo-plugin-wordpress-organic-keywords-2.png\" alt=\"9 best seo plugin wordpress organic keywords 2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/9-best-seo-plugin-wordpress-organic-keywords-2.png 1182w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/9-best-seo-plugin-wordpress-organic-keywords-2-680x381.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/9-best-seo-plugin-wordpress-organic-keywords-2-768x430.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1182px) 100vw, 1182px\"><\/p>\n<p>That sounded odd, so I pluralized \u201cplugin\u201d and added the conjunction \u201cfor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"836\" height=\"74\" class=\"wp-image-36447\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/9-best-seo-plugin-wordpress-2.png\" alt=\"9 best seo plugin wordpress 2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/9-best-seo-plugin-wordpress-2.png 836w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/9-best-seo-plugin-wordpress-2-680x60.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/9-best-seo-plugin-wordpress-2-768x68.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 836px) 100vw, 836px\"><\/p>\n<p>As you can see, the URL is still short and sweet but reads a lot more naturally.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"make-it-lowercase\">8. Make it lowercase<\/h3>\n<p>Most web servers treat lower and uppercase URLs the same, but this isn\u2019t always the case. Technically, everything after the hostname (domain) in a URL is case-sensitive, and some servers will treat them differently.<\/p>\n<p>To be on the safe side and to avoid potential <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/duplicate-content\/\">duplicate content<\/a>&nbsp;issues, use lowercase URLs\u2014always.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re using WordPress, you can skip this part because it happens automatically.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"599\" height=\"134\" class=\"wp-image-36445\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/wordpress-slug-lowercase-2.gif\" alt=\"wordpress slug lowercase 2\"><\/p>\n<p>If not, just to paste your title into <a href=\"https:\/\/convertcase.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">convertcase.net<\/a>&nbsp;and choose lowercase.<\/p>\n<p><code>title tag seo<\/code><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"replace-spaces-with-hyphens\">9. Replace spaces with hyphens<\/h3>\n<p>URLs can\u2019t include spaces. Browsers rewrite them to \u201c%20\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"386\" height=\"34\" class=\"wp-image-36459\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Screen-Recording-2020-05-14-at-08.08-pm-2.gif\" alt=\"Screen Recording 2020 05 14 at 08.08 pm 2\"><\/p>\n<p>So, the final step is to replace all of the spaces with hyphens&nbsp;(-).<\/p>\n<p>Can you use underscores (_) instead? Google said in 2016 that they don\u2019t care if your URLs contain dashes or hyphens. That remains true from a ranking perspective, but as people are generally more familiar with hyphens, it makes sense to use them where possible.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also Google\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/answer\/76329?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">official recommendation<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We recommend that you use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your&nbsp;URLs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Here\u2019s the final slug for our post about title&nbsp;tags:<\/p>\n<p><code>title-tag-seo<\/code><\/p>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"Best practices for the rest of the URL\" data-section=\"url-best-practices\">\n<h2>Best practices for the rest of the&nbsp;URL<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Earlier in this guide, we talked about the anatomy of a&nbsp;URL.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"880\" class=\"wp-image-36457\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/the-anatomy-of-a-url-5.png\" alt=\"the anatomy of a url 5\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/the-anatomy-of-a-url-5.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/the-anatomy-of-a-url-5-435x425.png 435w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/the-anatomy-of-a-url-5-768x751.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>The process above only tackles one part: the <em>slug<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>So here are some SEO best practices to keep in mind for the rest of the&nbsp;URL.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"#use-https\">Use HTTPS<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#use-subdomains-sparingly\">Use subdomains only if you need&nbsp;to<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#choose-a-memorable-domain\">Choose a memorable domain<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#choose-an-appropriate-tld\">Choose an appropriate TLD<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#create-hierarchy-with-subfolders\">Use subfolders to provide hierarchy<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#use-subfolders-as-required\">Use as many subfolders as you&nbsp;need<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#avoid-keyword-repetition\">Avoid keyword repetition<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#avoid-dates\">Avoid dates<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#avoid-url-parameters\">Avoid URL parameters where possible<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 id=\"use-https\">Use HTTPS<\/h3>\n<p>HTTPS encrypts data sent between site visitors and your web server. It\u2019s been a lightweight ranking factor since&nbsp;2014.<\/p>\n<p>So if you\u2019re not yet using HTTPS, it\u2019s definitely worth switching.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Recommended reading:<\/strong>&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/what-is-https\/\">What is HTTPS? Everything You Need to&nbsp;Know<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"use-subdomains-sparingly\">Use subdomains only if you need&nbsp;to<\/h3>\n<p>Subdomains appear before the domain name. They\u2019re typically used to separate different areas of a website according to their functionality.<\/p>\n<p>For example, Hubspot\u2019s blog is on a subdomain.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"418\" height=\"72\" class=\"wp-image-36451\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/10-hubspot-blog-subdomain-2.png\" alt=\"10 hubspot blog subdomain 2\"><\/p>\n<p>Google says that they treat <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/subdomain-vs-subfolder\/\">content on subdomains the same as any other content<\/a> and that it\u2019s no harder to rank a subdomain than a subfolder.<\/p>\n<div data-mode=\"normal\" data-oembed=\"1\" data-provider=\"youtube\" id=\"arve-youtube-ujgdyan9g-g\" style=\"max-width:900px;\" class=\"arve\">\n<div class=\"arve-inner\">\n<div style=\"aspect-ratio:500\/281\" class=\"arve-embed arve-embed--has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"arve-ar\" style=\"padding-top:56.200000%\"><\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t<iframe allow=\"accelerometer 'none';autoplay 'none';bluetooth 'none';browsing-topics 'none';camera 'none';clipboard-read 'none';clipboard-write;display-capture 'none';encrypted-media 'none';gamepad 'none';geolocation 'none';gyroscope 'none';hid 'none';identity-credentials-get 'none';idle-detection 'none';keyboard-map 'none';local-fonts;magnetometer 'none';microphone 'none';midi 'none';otp-credentials 'none';payment 'none';picture-in-picture;publickey-credentials-create 'none';publickey-credentials-get 'none';screen-wake-lock 'none';serial 'none';summarizer 'none';sync-xhr;usb 'none';web-share;window-management 'none';xr-spatial-tracking 'none';\" allowfullscreen class=\"arve-iframe fitvidsignore\" credentialless data-arve=\"arve-youtube-ujgdyan9g-g\" data-lenis-prevent data-src-no-ap=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/uJGDyAN9g-g?feature=oembed&amp;iv_load_policy=3&amp;modestbranding=1&amp;rel=0&amp;autohide=1&amp;playsinline=0&amp;autoplay=0\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"505.8\" loading=\"lazy\" name referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-presentation allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/uJGDyAN9g-g?feature=oembed&amp;iv_load_policy=3&amp;modestbranding=1&amp;rel=0&amp;autohide=1&amp;playsinline=0&amp;autoplay=0\" title width=\"900\"><\/iframe><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>However, many SEOs disagree, and there have been many reported cases of traffic increases after moving content from a subdomain to a subfolder.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">15) Moving from subdomain to subfolder still works a treat in 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/e2M7W8OJon\">pic.twitter.com\/e2M7W8OJon<\/a>\u2014 \ud83e\udda0 Jon Hogg (@ItsHogg) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ItsHogg\/status\/1252629597650329601?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 21,&nbsp;2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I think <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/randfish?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@randfish<\/a> will like a graph like this \u2b07\ufe0f. Results of moving a blog from subdomain to subfolder\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ACQOVpY0H0\">pic.twitter.com\/ACQOVpY0H0<\/a>\u2014 Gianluca Fiorelli at \ud83c\udfe0 (@gfiorelli1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/gfiorelli1\/status\/840141001830285313?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 10,&nbsp;2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Nobody knows for sure why this is, but the common theory amongst SEOs is that Google sometimes treats subdomains as separate websites.<\/p>\n<p>So our advice is not to use subdomains unless absolutely necessary.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"choose-a-memorable-domain\">Choose a memorable domain<\/h3>\n<p>If you\u2019re still in the early stages of your website and haven\u2019t chosen a domain yet, don\u2019t worry about getting a keyword-rich or exact-match domain. Just go for something that\u2019s memorable and brandable.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what Google\u2019s John Mueller <a href=\"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/ranking-keyword-domains\/263693\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said<\/a>&nbsp;about keyword-rich domains:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2026just because keywords are in a domain name doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019ll automatically rank for those keywords. And that\u2019s something that\u2019s been the case for a really, really long&nbsp;time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3 id=\"choose-an-appropriate-tld\">Choose an appropriate TLD<\/h3>\n<p>If you want to attract global traffic, choose a generic top-level domain (gTLD) such as .com.<\/p>\n<p>Google treats all gTLDs the same from an SEO standpoint, but .com is usually the best if you can get it. TLDs like .biz, .info, and .name are often associated with spam, so choosing one of those might affect your ability to <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/seo\/link-building\" data-ahr=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/link-building\/\">build high-quality links<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re targeting customers in a specific location, use either a gTLD or country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) such as .co.uk or .fr.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sidenote\"><div class=\"sidenote-title\">Sidenote.<\/div> It\u2019s perfectly fine to use a gTLD like .com when targeting customers in a specific location too.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<h3 id=\"create-hierarchy-with-subfolders\">Use subfolders to provide hierarchy<\/h3>\n<p>Subfolders help provide a sense of hierarchy and give useful extra information.<\/p>\n<p>For example, take this&nbsp;URL:<\/p>\n<p><code>domain.com\/airpods.html<\/code><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s unclear from the URL whether the page is selling AirPods, an AirPods review, or something else.<\/p>\n<p>Now look at&nbsp;this:<\/p>\n<p><code>domain.com\/store\/earbuds\/apple\/airpods.html<\/code><\/p>\n<p>This is clearly the URL for a product page selling AirPods.<\/p>\n<p>But that\u2019s not all the subfolder structure tells you. It also makes it clear&nbsp;that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Earbuds are just one of the types of products on offer from the online store.<\/li>\n<li>Apple makes this product, and there are potentially other earbuds for sale from this same&nbsp;brand.<\/li>\n<li>There are likely other brands of earbuds for sale in the&nbsp;store.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Using subfolders also makes it easier to incorporate keywords into URLs without them looking spammy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spammy:<\/strong>&nbsp;<code>domain.com\/buy-apple-airpods-earbuds.html<\/code><br>\n<strong>Non-spammy:<\/strong>&nbsp;<code>domain.com\/store\/earbuds\/apple\/airpods.html<\/code><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"use-subfolders-as-required\">Use as many subfolders as you&nbsp;need<\/h3>\n<p>Many SEOs believe that having too many subfolders in a URL hurts rankings. However, Google has stated on numerous occasions that this isn\u2019t&nbsp;true.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">No, as long as the URLs work and are linked consistently, that should be fine.\u2014 Google Webmasters (@googlewmc) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/googlewmc\/status\/949228241436495873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 5,&nbsp;2018<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>That said, because of how most modern CMS\u2019 work, having lots of subfolders in a URL is often a sign that a page is \u201cburied\u201d in the site architecture.<\/p>\n<p>That isn\u2019t ideal if you want users (and search engines) to be able to find the&nbsp;page.<\/p>\n<p>If you suspect this might be a problem on your site, don\u2019t rely on the number of subfolders for proof. Instead, crawl your site with a tool like <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-audit\">Ahrefs\u2019 Site Audit<\/a>&nbsp;and look for deep&nbsp;pages.<\/p>\n<p>You can use this set of filters in the Page Explorer the do&nbsp;that:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_36461\" style=\"width: 1610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-36461\" class=\"size-full wp-image-36461\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/11-site-audit-filters-deep-pages-2.png\" alt width=\"1600\" height=\"730\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/11-site-audit-filters-deep-pages-2.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/11-site-audit-filters-deep-pages-2-680x310.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/11-site-audit-filters-deep-pages-2-768x350.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/11-site-audit-filters-deep-pages-2-1536x701.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"><p id=\"caption-attachment-36461\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Page Explorer in <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-audit\">Ahrefs\u2019 Site Audit<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<h3 id=\"avoid-keyword-repetition\">Avoid keyword repetition<\/h3>\n<p>Repeating keywords in URLs makes them look spammy.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s often easy to avoid this when creating URL slugs, but it\u2019s an easy mistake to make when working with subfolders.<\/p>\n<p>For example, take a look at the URL for this&nbsp;page:<\/p>\n<p><code>myer.com.au\/c\/<strong>men<\/strong>\/<strong>mens<\/strong>-shoes\/<strong>mens<\/strong>-sneakers<\/code><\/p>\n<p>It repeats the word \u201cmen\u201d three&nbsp;times.<\/p>\n<p>While this isn\u2019t a huge deal, the repetition is unnecessary. This would probably be better:<\/p>\n<p><code>myer.com.au\/c\/<strong>men<\/strong>\/shoes\/sneakers<\/code><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"avoid-dates\">Avoid dates<\/h3>\n<p>Most popular CMS\u2019 (e.g., WordPress) use URLs with dates by default\u2014at least for&nbsp;posts.<\/p>\n<p>This can cause issues if you ever update your content because Google may end up showing contradictory information in the search results.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"335\" class=\"wp-image-36444\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/12-date-in-url-2.png\" alt=\"12 date in url 2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/12-date-in-url-2.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/12-date-in-url-2-680x142.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/12-date-in-url-2-768x161.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/12-date-in-url-2-1536x322.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"><\/p>\n<p>Now, if your site is set up like this and you\u2019ve already published content, don\u2019t change things. The <strong>risk of breaking your website <\/strong>is too&nbsp;high.<\/p>\n<p>However, if you\u2019re setting up a new site using WordPress, the simple solution to this issue is to change your permalink settings&nbsp;before publishing anything.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"688\" class=\"wp-image-36453\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/13-wordpress-permalinks-2.png\" alt=\"13 wordpress permalinks 2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/13-wordpress-permalinks-2.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/13-wordpress-permalinks-2-680x292.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/13-wordpress-permalinks-2-768x330.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/13-wordpress-permalinks-2-1536x660.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"avoid-url-parameters\">Avoid URL parameters where possible<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/url-parameters\/\">URL parameters<\/a> usually appear after a question mark (?) in the&nbsp;URL.<\/p>\n<p>These are common on ecommerce sites with faceted navigation and sorting options, but it\u2019s best to avoid them&nbsp;on indexable pages unless absolutely necessary.<\/p>\n<p>Why? Because they can cause duplicate content issues. That\u2019s where the same or similar content is accessible at multiple URLs.<\/p>\n<p>On an ecommerce site, this might be the same product in different colors or styles.<\/p>\n<p>For example, look at how the URL changes here while the page content stays the&nbsp;same:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1055\" height=\"636\" class=\"wp-image-36462\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Screen-Recording-2020-05-14-at-08.28-pm-2.gif\" alt=\"Screen Recording 2020 05 14 at 08.28 pm 2\"><\/p>\n<p>If this happens on your site, make sure to <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/canonical-tags\/\">canonicalize<\/a>&nbsp;similar or duplicate URLs to the version that should rank in search engines.<\/p>\n<p>You can find <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/duplicate-content\/\">duplicate content<\/a>&nbsp;issues on your site in the <strong>Duplicate content<\/strong>&nbsp;report in <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-audit\">Ahrefs\u2019 Site Audit<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"937\" class=\"wp-image-36440\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/14-duplicate-pages-site-audit-2.png\" alt=\"14 duplicate pages site audit 2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/14-duplicate-pages-site-audit-2.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/14-duplicate-pages-site-audit-2-680x398.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/14-duplicate-pages-site-audit-2-768x450.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/14-duplicate-pages-site-audit-2-1536x900.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"><\/p>\n<h2>Final thoughts<\/h2>\n<p>While it doesn\u2019t pay to spend too much time creating SEO-friendly URLs, it certainly makes sense to take a logical approach to them and follow best practices.<\/p>\n<p>Plus, the process above will take seconds or minutes once you\u2019ve done it a few&nbsp;times.<\/p>\n<p>Got questions? Ping me <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joshuachardwick?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let\u2019s start with the good news: creating URLs for SEO isn\u2019t rocket science. If you were to describe your page in a few words and replace the spaces with hyphens, that would usually be \u201cgood enough\u201d for&nbsp;SEO. But you\u2019d probably<span class=\"ellipsis\">\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\">Read more \u203a<\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":36421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[413,329],"tags":[],"coauthors":[336],"class_list":["post-36407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-page-seo","category-technical-seo","odd"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How to Create SEO-Friendly URLs (Step-by-Step)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how to optimize URLs for SEO in minutes.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/seo-friendly-urls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Create SEO-Friendly URLs (Step-by-Step)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Optimize your URLs in minutes.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/seo-friendly-urls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SEO Blog by Ahrefs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Ahrefs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-05-21T17:27:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-10-05T08:04:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/fb-seo-urls.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"990\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joshua Hardwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Optimize your URLs in minutes.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@JoshuaCHardwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ahrefs\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ahrefs.com\\\/blog\\\/seo-friendly-urls\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ahrefs.com\\\/blog\\\/seo-friendly-urls\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Joshua Hardwick\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ahrefs.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/e6a89cbde8e750d22996aa26e213e712\"},\"headline\":\"How to Create SEO-Friendly URLs 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