What Is a Slug in WordPress and How to Use It for SEO

In simple terms, a WordPress slug is the clean, easy-to-read part of your website's address that comes after your domain name. Think of it as the short, clear title on the spine of a book—it tells you exactly what’s inside with just a look.

What Is a WordPress Slug and How Does It Work

Let's use a simple comparison. If your website is a library and each page is a book, the URL is that book's special spot on the shelf. A good slug makes that spot easy for anyone to find and understand.

When you create a new page or post, WordPress automatically makes a slug for you based on your title. So, if your post title is "My Top 10 Favorite Healthy Recipes," WordPress might create a slug like this: my-top-10-favorite-healthy-recipes.

This automatic slug works, but it's not always the best. It's a good idea to edit it yourself to make it shorter and more focused. A much better version would just be healthy-recipes.

From Messy to Clean: An Example

Let’s see the difference in a real example. Without a good slug, a URL might look like a random mix of letters and numbers, like yourwebsite.com/?p=123. This tells visitors and search engines nothing about the page.

But with a well-made slug, that same URL becomes clear and helpful: yourwebsite.com/healthy-recipes. This simple change makes your site’s links look more professional and trustworthy.

Here’s a quick chart to break down what a WordPress slug is all about.

WordPress Slug at a Glance

In short, a slug is like a bridge that connects your content, your visitors, and search engines.

Why You Should Almost Always Edit Your Slugs

Editing your slugs is a small job with a big payoff. Slugs are a key part of good on-page SEO because they help search engines understand your content.

Changing a slug lets you:

• Add your main keyword, which gives your search engine rankings a small boost.
• Remove extra "stop words" like "a," "the," or "and" to make the URL cleaner.
• Create a shorter, more memorable link that's easier for people to share.

You can learn more about how slugs fit into the big picture by reading about an SEO-friendly URL structure.

Basically, a slug turns a simple web address into a helpful tool for improving both user experience and SEO.

Why Your Slugs Matter for SEO and User Trust

A slug might seem like a small part of your website, but it has a surprisingly big effect. It’s one of the first things both search engines and people notice, giving them a strong clue about your page's topic before they even click.

Think of it like this: when Google looks at your site, a slug like healthy-recipes instantly tells its system what to expect. This simple, direct signal helps you appear in the right search results for the right people.

It’s a small detail that makes a big difference.

Building Trust with Clean URLs

But this isn’t just about making Google happy. A clean, descriptive slug also helps visitors trust you.

Imagine you see two links on social media. Which one would you rather click?

• yoursite.com/?p=479
• yoursite.com/easy-vegan-dinner-ideas

You’d click the second one, right? Of course. It looks professional and tells you exactly what you’re getting. The first one looks messy and might make you think twice.

A well-made slug is a promise to your visitors. It clearly says, "This is what you're looking for," which makes your content more welcoming and reliable from the moment someone sees the link.

This clarity has a real effect on how many people click your links. In fact, simply improving your slug with good keywords can increase clicks by as much as 20-30%. To see how small changes like this fit into a bigger plan, check out our guide on how to do SEO in WordPress.

How Slugs Affect Your Overall SEO

Your slug is just one piece of the SEO puzzle, but it works with other important parts to make your site more visible. For example, knowing what a meta title is and its SEO impact is just as important, as both the slug and title work together to paint a clear picture for search engines.

And since WordPress is used all over the world, changing your slugs is also great for reaching people in different countries, helping you connect with them in their own language.

How to Easily Find and Change Slugs in WordPress

Now that we know what a slug is, let's get to the fun part. Finding and changing the slug for a post or page is very easy—it only takes a few seconds. This is one of those small changes that gives you a lot of control over your site's URLs.

Whether you're writing new content or updating an old article, the steps are pretty much the same. WordPress keeps the slug editor in an easy-to-find spot, so you can make quick changes without a lot of clicking.

Changing Slugs for Posts and Pages

You can edit your slug right in the WordPress editor. It works whether you use the modern Block Editor (also called Gutenberg) or the older Classic Editor.

For the Block Editor (Gutenberg):

1. Open the post or page you want to edit.
2. In the settings sidebar on the right, make sure you're on the "Post" or "Page" tab.
3. Find the "Summary" section and look for the Permalink.
4. Click on the current URL, and the URL Slug box will show up.
5. Type your new, keyword-friendly slug into the box and click "Update" to save it.

For the Classic Editor:

1. Open the post or page you want to edit.
2. Right below the title box, you’ll see the Permalink.
3. Click the "Edit" button next to it.
4. A small text box will appear. Type your new slug in there and click "OK."
5. Remember to click the main "Update" button to save your changes.

Many website owners use a good WordPress SEO plugin to make this even easier. These tools often add their own boxes for editing slugs next to other important SEO settings, which keeps everything in one place.

Editing Category and Tag Slugs

Don’t just stop with your posts and pages. Your category and tag pages have slugs, too. Fixing them up is a smart way to get a little extra SEO value. The steps are a bit different but just as easy.

The fastest way is using the "Quick Edit" feature:

• Go to Posts → Categories (or Posts → Tags).
• Move your mouse over the category or tag you want to change, and some options will appear. Click Quick Edit.
• A new menu will open, letting you change both the name and the slug.
• Type your new slug into the field and click Update Category.

It’s a small change, but it helps make sure that even your category pages have clean, helpful URLs. Taking a minute to do this helps build a more professional and consistent site, which both your visitors and Google will like.

Crafting the Perfect SEO-Friendly Slug

Knowing where to find and edit a slug is the first step. Now comes the fun part: making it work for you. A great slug isn't just a technical detail; it's a small but powerful tool that tells both people and search engines what your page is about.

A well-made slug is short, clear, and easy to understand. It gives readers a quick look at your content, which makes them more likely to click.

This picture sums up the key rules for making your slugs just right.

As you can see, the goal is to be short, use hyphens to separate words, and include your main keyword without overdoing it. These simple habits create slugs that are clean, easy to read, and effective.

Simple Rules for Better Slugs

Let's look at these rules more closely. Think of this as your simple checklist for creating great, SEO-friendly slugs for every page and post you publish.

• Include Your Main Keyword: This is the most important rule. Your slug is one of the first places search engines look to understand your page's topic. Not sure how to find the right words? Our guide on how to do keyword research can help you get started.
• Keep It Short and Sweet: Long, messy URLs are hard to read and share. Your goal is a slug that is helpful but also short.
• Use Hyphens, Not Underscores: Google and other search engines see hyphens (-) as spaces between words, which helps them understand your URL. Underscores (_), on the other hand, are often ignored, which can mash your words together.
• Get Rid of Stop Words: Small words like "a," "the," "and," or "in" just add clutter. They don't add any real value, so it’s best to remove them to keep your slug clean and focused.

Good Slug vs. Bad Slug Examples

Seeing these rules in action is the best way to understand how much they matter. A bad slug can be confusing, while a good one is clear and to the point.

Here's a table comparing some common mistakes with their better versions.

Notice how the "Good" examples are much cleaner and easier to read? That's what you want.

By following these simple rules, you can make sure every slug on your website is working hard to help your SEO.

Managing Slugs for Hundreds of Pages at Once

Editing slugs one by one is easy enough when you only have a few pages. But what happens when you’re working with hundreds—or even thousands?

This is a real problem for anyone with a large site. When you want to create a lot of content, changing every single slug by hand just won't work. It’s not only very slow; it can also lead to mistakes that can hurt your SEO without you realizing it.

The Power of Automation

This is where a tool made for handling many pages at once, like LPagery, can make a huge difference. Instead of clicking into every page in WordPress, you can control all your slugs from a single spreadsheet. This turns a long, manual job into a quick, automatic one.

For example, you can add a column in your spreadsheet just for your slugs. This lets you create clean, consistent, and optimized URLs for every single page you're about to make.

Here’s a look at how a simple spreadsheet column can set up all the slugs for your pages at once.

This way, every what is a slug in wordpress is made perfectly before the page is even published.

Using a spreadsheet to manage your slugs gives you a clear overview of your site’s URL structure. You can check everything in one place, find mistakes right away, and keep a consistent pattern across your whole site.

This method is very helpful when you need to bulk create pages in WordPress, as it makes slug optimization a built-in part of your process. You can create hundreds of pages, and LPagery will automatically give the right SEO-friendly slug to each one. It saves many hours and keeps your quality high, no matter how big your project is.

Common Questions About WordPress Slugs Answered

Even after you get used to WordPress slugs, a few questions always seem to come up. Let’s answer some of the most common ones so you can manage your URLs with confidence.

What Happens If I Change a Slug on a Published Post?

If you change the slug of a page that is already live, the old URL will break. Anyone who clicks it will see a "404 not found" error. This is a dead end for your visitors and a problem for search engines, as it breaks any links you've earned from other sites.

To fix this, you must set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. A 301 redirect tells web browsers and search engines that the page has moved for good, and it sends traffic to the right place automatically. Most SEO plugins can do this for you.

A 301 redirect is like giving the post office a forwarding address. It makes sure that anyone trying to visit your old link gets sent to the right place without getting lost.

Can Two Pages Have the Same Slug?

No. WordPress requires every single slug to be one-of-a-kind. If you try to create a new page with a slug that’s already being used, WordPress will automatically add a number to the end (like my-cool-post-2).

This rule prevents confusion and makes sure every piece of content has its own special address on your website.

For bigger sites, especially those that create content automatically, a good URL plan is very important. Learning how to do programmatic SEO in WordPress is key to managing thousands of unique slugs without any problems.

Should I Include Numbers or Dates in My Slugs?

It’s almost always a bad idea to put dates or specific numbers in your slugs. A slug like 2024-seo-tips starts to feel old as soon as the year is over.

Even if you update the article next year, the URL is still stuck in the past. It’s much better to create an "evergreen" slug that focuses on the main topic, like seo-tips. This way, your content can stay useful—and rank well—for years to come.

About the Author

Jonas Lindemann

I’m an experienced SEO professional with over a decade of helping over 100 businesses rank higher online, especially local businesses, e-commerce stores and SaaS. As the co-founder of LPagery, I specialize in practical, proven strategies for regular SEO and Local SEO success.