Are your URLs short, readable, and logically structured?

A URL is part of your user interface. People read it, share it, and judge your site by it, and search engines use it as a hint about structure and relevance. Messy URLs are harder to read, share and maintain — though a long path is not, by itself, an SEO penalty.

What a good URL looks like

Compare these two:

https://example.com/products/ergonomic-office-chair
https://example.com/cat.php?id=482&sess=9f3a&ref=nav&p=2

The first is readable, memorable, and describes the page. The second is opaque — and its parameters illustrate three different problems: sess is session state that should never be in a URL, ref creates duplicate variants of identical content, and p=2 may be real pagination — genuinely different content that deserves its own URL and must not be folded into page one.

Aim for URLs that are:

• Lowercase — URL paths are generally case-sensitive (though server and application routing varies), so mixed case invites broken links and accidental duplicates. Use lowercase consistently and redirect unintended case variants.
• Hyphen-separated — - between words in new slugs; underscores are valid but harder to scan.
• Descriptive but concise — a few meaningful words, no keyword stuffing.
• Stable — changing a URL without a permanent redirect breaks every link and bookmark pointing at it; avoid unnecessary changes, and redirect the real ones.

Apply the convention to new URLs. Don't rewrite an established, working URL just to make it prettier — that migration risks more than a capital letter or underscore ever cost.

Let structure reflect real hierarchy

Aim for paths that mirror genuine structure, not your internal folder habits:

Clear:     /guides/email-deliverability
Cluttered: /resources/library/articles/technical/email/deliverability

The number of segments in a URL isn't the same as how "deep" a page is to reach. Discovery is set by crawlable internal links — plus sitemaps, redirects and external links — not by counting slashes. So there's no magic segment limit: keep paths as short and logical as the content genuinely allows, and make sure important pages are well linked.

Treat every URL as permanent from the day you publish it. Short, clean, logically structured paths are easier to read and share, and far less likely to breed accidental variants and maintenance problems over the years.

What to do

1. Use readable slugs generated from the page title, all lowercase, hyphen-separated — for new URLs.
2. Keep important pages well linked from navigation and related content, and let the URL reflect genuine hierarchy rather than aiming for a fixed number of segments.
3. Keep tracking parameters out of internal links, and session identifiers out of URLs entirely (secure cookie-based sessions instead). Use a canonical element only where a parameterized URL carries duplicate or equivalent content — it's a preference signal, not a redirect, and it hides nothing.
4. When you permanently move a page, 301-redirect the old URL to its closest equivalent, update internal links, canonicals and the sitemap, avoid chains, and leave the redirect in place — visibility may still fluctuate while engines process the move.
5. Decide on trailing-slash and www conventions once, then enforce them by linking to the chosen form and permanently redirecting the equivalents one-to-one (the canonical-hostname tip covers the mechanics) — never merging URLs that intentionally differ.