Lesson 5
URL Structure Best Practices
What you’ll learn
By the end of this lesson, you’ll know:
What makes a good URL
How URLs support page clarity and SEO
What to avoid when creating or editing URLs
Why URLs matter
A URL is one of the first signals search engines and users see.
A good URL:
- Describes the page clearly
- Reinforces the page topic
- Is easy to read and remember
A poor URL adds confusion — even if the content itself is good.
What makes a good URL
As a general rule, a good URL should be:
- Short
- Descriptive
- Human-readable
For example:
/learn/on-page-seo/
/page-id-123/?ref=abc
The goal is clarity, not cleverness.
Best practices to follow
When creating or editing URLs:
- Use real words, separated by hyphens
- Reflect the main topic of the page
- Keep them lowercase
- Avoid unnecessary numbers or dates
- Avoid stuffing keywords
A URL should match the page title conceptually, not repeat it word-for-word.
What to avoid
Common URL mistakes include:
- Very long URLs
- Multiple topics in one URL
- Random strings of characters
- Changing URLs frequently
Once a page is published and indexed, changing its URL should be done carefully — ideally with a proper redirect in place.
A practical mindset
Think of the URL as:
A label on a folder, not a description of everything inside it.
If the label clearly tells you what’s in the folder, it’s doing its job.