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What is Slug? Learn Its Importance and How to Use It

Last updated: Sep 01, 2023

https://cmlabs.co/en-au/seo-terms/what-is-slug

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What is Slug?

A slug is a part of a URL that identifies a specific page on a website. It will usually be placed at the end of the URL after your domain name. It should be easy to read as it explains the content of a page to users who come across the page.

The characteristics of good slugs are as follows:

Explaining the content
Containing keywords
Not long-winded
Using lower cases only
Numbers or years are not included in it
Each word is separated by a hyphen (-)

The Importance of Slugs in SEO

Creating good slugs is very important in SEO practices. This is because a slug is an important aspect that helps search engines and users understand the content. The important thing that you should pay attention to in making slugs is keywords and user-friendliness.

Putting Keywords in URL Slugs

Slugs work in giving signals for search engines to find out whether a content is relevant to certain keywords or not.

The use of keywords in the slugs can make your content more likely to appear according to the keywords you are targeting on the SERP.

Creating User-friendly URL Slugs

User-friendly URL slugs can help users and search engines find and understand the content on your pages. How to identify user-friendly URL slugs?

As an example, the URL of this page is /slug-is. Then, compare it with another URL slug /?p=6899. Surely, the first one will be easier to understand and more trusted by users.

The Differences between URL Slugs and URLs

URL slugs refer to the small parts that are located at the very end of URLs, while the URL itself is the overall website address of a page. Let's look again at the sample URL of this page https://cmlabs.co/en-id/seo-terms/slug-is.

At the URL, you will see that the website address is divided into domain names, language and country codes, categories, and slugs. The part that includes the URL slug is the last element i.e. /slug-is.

How to Write URL Slugs Properly

After knowing what slugs are and how important they are to SEO, you should also be able to properly create it.

Start URL with HTTPS

HTTPS is a protocol that uses SSL to support encryption and authentication so that websites can have secure connections. Search engines will only display websites that already use HTTPS to maintain their user security.

The browser will warn users that the website using the HTTP protocol is not safe to be visited. Therefore, you must make sure that you are using HTTPS so that your website can appear on the SERPs and gain users’ trust.

To find out whether or not your website uses the HTTPS protocol and has an SSL certificate, you can use the SSL Checker Tool from cmlabs.

Use a Clear Domain

Use a domain name that matches your business brand. It will make users easily find your website when they type in the brand name of the business in the search box. Using a brand name on your website's domain will help users find your website.

Add Subdomains

Subdomains are additional information or names in front of website domains. They are very useful in organizing specific website content and separating it from the rest of the website.

Additionally, they help users to know the various functions that your website has to offer.

Optimize Page-path with Keywords

Page-path is the navigation structure of a website. URLs that have a page-path can help web crawlers understand the navigation structure of the website.

For example, the page-path of https://cmlabs.co/id-id/seo-terms/slug-is tells web crawlers and users that the content discusses slugs, belongs to the category SEO terms, and is available in Indonesian in the region of Indonesia.