• Use lowercase, hyphen-separated, descriptive words and keep URLs as short as is sensible.
• Choose one format for protocol, hostname, case and trailing slash, and redirect the rest.
• The best URL is one that never has to change.
• Parameters that change content need a decision: index, canonicalise or block.
• Fragments after a hash are ignored for indexing, so never use them for unique content.

URLs are a small ranking factor and a large usability and maintenance factor. A clean structure makes a site easier to crawl, analyse, link to and trust. A messy one creates duplication that you then spend years managing.

What a good URL looks like

 https://www.example.com/guides/canonical-tags 

• Readable: a person can guess what is on the page.
• Lowercase: paths are case-sensitive on most servers, so mixed case causes duplicates.
• Hyphens between words: Google treats hyphens as word separators. Underscores are less reliable.
• Short: drop stop words and anything that does not add meaning.
• Free of dates and versions unless the content really is tied to a date. "best-laptops-2024" ages badly.
• ASCII where practical. Non-ASCII characters are supported when UTF-8 encoded, and can be right for local-language sites, but they are ugly when copied and pasted.

Folders, subdomains and depth

Folders are useful for grouping content and for reporting, because you can filter Search Console and analytics by path. They do not need to mirror every level of your navigation. What matters for crawling is click depth (how many links from the homepage), not the number of slashes.

Subfolders generally consolidate authority more predictably than subdomains. Use a subdomain when there is a clear technical or organisational reason, not by default.

Consistency rules

Decide once, then enforce with 301 redirects and consistent internal linking:

• https, not http.
• www or non-www.
• Trailing slash or no trailing slash. On anything other than the root, /page and /page/ are different URLs.
• Lowercase only.
• No index.html or default document variants.

URL parameters

Parameters come in two flavours:

• Passive parameters do not change content: tracking codes such as utm_source, session IDs and click identifiers.
• Active parameters change content: sorting, filtering, pagination, search and language selection.

Google removed the URL Parameters tool from Search Console in 2022, so handling is now down to you:

• Canonical tags for passive parameters and for sort orders.
• Robots.txt for parameter spaces that are effectively infinite, such as multi-select filters.
• Noindex for parameter pages that need to be crawled but should not be indexed.
• Static, clean URLs for the handful of filtered pages that have real search demand.
• Consistent ordering so ?colour=red&size=9 and ?size=9&colour=red do not both exist.

Never use tracking parameters on internal links. They create duplicates and overwrite the original source in analytics.

Fragments

Anything after a # is not sent to the server and is ignored for indexing. Fragments are fine for jump links within a page. They are not fine as the only way to reach distinct content, which is a common problem with older single-page apps.

Changing URLs

Avoid it unless there is a strong reason. Every URL change carries risk and a period of fluctuation. If you must, redirect each old URL with a 301, update internal links and sitemaps, and monitor closely.

Common mistakes

• Multiple URLs for one product because it sits in several categories.
• Session IDs in URLs.
• Keyword-stuffed slugs.
• Spaces and special characters that become %20 and worse.
• Changing the URL every time the title is edited.

How to test

Crawl the site and look at URL counts by pattern. If there are far more URLs than real pages, parameters or inconsistency are usually to blame. Compare that with log files to see where crawlers spend their time.

The GEO angle

Descriptive URLs give language models a useful hint about what a page contains before they fetch it, and they are easier for assistants to cite accurately. Stable URLs matter even more here, since models can keep referencing an address long after it was first seen.

Add your title here

This is a paragraph. Writing in paragraphs lets visitors find what they are looking for quickly and easily. Make sure the title suits the content of this text.