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What is a URL slug, and how do you edit one?

A URL slug is the part at the end of a page's address that names that page, such as best-running-shoes in example.com/blog/best-running-shoes.

Also calledSlugPost slug

One title, three slugs

1Title: 10 Best Running Shoes for Flat Feet (2026)
2From the whole title: 10-best-running-shoes-for-flat-feet-2026
3Shorter: running-shoes-flat-feet
4Not recommended: running_shoes_flat_feet or ?p=123

The shorter slug still names the page, and it doesn't go stale when the year in the title changes.

What makes a good slug

Google's guidance on URL structure comes down to a few rules:

Readable words instead of long ID numbers.
Hyphens between words. Google says they help people and search engines pick out each word, and advises against the underscore (_).
Words in the language your readers search in. Google's own examples include German and Chinese URLs.
One spelling: URLs are case sensitive, so /Shoes and /shoes are different pages to Google.

Slug or permalink?

In WordPress the permalink is the full, permanent address of a post, and the slug is the post's own part of it. WordPress builds the slug from the title: its documentation gives "This Is A Great Post!" becoming this-is-a-great-post. The permalink settings choose what goes around it, such as the date or a category.

Editing the slug of a live page

Changing a slug changes the URL, so the old address stops working unless something redirects it. Google recommends a permanent server-side redirect when a URL changes. Some platforms add that redirect for you and some don't, so open the old URL after the change and check where it lands.

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URL slug: questions people ask

Is a slug the same as a URL?

No. The URL is the whole address. The slug is the last part, the words that name the page.

Why is it called a slug?

The word comes from newspapers, where a slug was the short name an article carried while it was in production.

Does the slug affect rankings?

Google's guidance is to use readable words and hyphens so people and search engines can understand the URL. It doesn't say that a keyword in the slug lifts a page's ranking.

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