Components: URL Slug

Guides creation of SEO-friendly URL slugs for blog posts, articles, and content pages. Research on 11.8M Google results shows shorter URLs tend to rank higher; position #1 URLs average 50–60 characters.

When invoking: On first use, if helpful, open with 1–2 sentences on what this skill covers, then provide the main output. On subsequent use or when the user asks to skip, go directly to the main output.

Scope

• URL slug: The path segment after the base (e.g., ai-people-search in /blog/ai-people-search)
• Applies to: Blog posts, articles, guides, category pages, product pages

Best Practices

Length

Guideline	Target
Slug length	Under 60 characters total (including path prefix)
Word count	3–5 words
Principle	Shorter = easier to read, share, remember; less truncation in SERPs; see serp-features

Example: "The Complete Guide to AI Search Engine for Finding People" → ai-people-search (3 words) or ai-search-finding-people (4 words), not ai-search-engine-finding-people-speed-discovery-outreach (9 words, 51 chars).

Format

Rule	Do	Avoid
Separators	Hyphens (-)	Underscores (_), spaces, periods
Case	Lowercase only	Mixed case (causes duplicate content)
Characters	Letters (a-z), numbers (0-9), hyphens	Special chars
Stop words	Remove when possible: the, a, and, or, to	Keep when needed: "how-to"

Content

Rule	Guideline
Primary keyword	Include near start; one focus per URL
Descriptive	Clear what page is about from slug alone
No keyword stuffing	One keyword mention is enough
No dates	Omit unless time-specific (news, annual roundups)

Non-ASCII Characters

Scenario	Rule
Accented letters	Convert to ASCII: é→e, ü→u, ñ→n, ç→c
Non-Latin scripts	Use UTF-8 percent-encoding if required; prefer ASCII for compatibility
Example	jalapeno not jalapeño; cafe not café

Common Mistakes

• Copy-pasting full title: Summarize instead — long title → short slug
• Auto-generated IDs: /post/12847 — always customize
• Tracking params in slug: UTM, session IDs — use query params separately
• Changing without redirect: Always 301 from old to new slug

Slug Generation Workflow

1. Extract primary keyword from title or target keyword
2. Summarize in 3–5 words (don't copy full title)
3. Remove stop words (the, a, and, or) unless needed for readability
4. Lowercase, hyphenate, validate length < 60 chars
5. Check uniqueness — no duplicate slugs site-wide

Examples

Title / Topic	❌ Too long	✅ Recommended
AI Search Engine for Finding People: Speed vs. Discovery	ai-search-engine-finding-people-speed-discovery-outreach	ai-people-search or ai-search-finding-people
The Ultimate SEO Checklist for 2025	the-ultimate-seo-checklist-for-2025	seo-checklist-2025
How to Increase Website Traffic	how-to-increase-the-traffic-to-your-website	increase-website-traffic
Best Running Shoes for Marathon Training	best-running-shoes-for-marathon-training-in-2025	best-running-shoes-2025

Output Format

When creating or auditing a slug:

• Recommended slug (3–5 words)

• Character count (slug only)

• Primary keyword included

• Alternatives if multiple valid options

• Reference: Alignify URL optimization

Related Skills

• url-structure: URL hierarchy, site structure; references this skill for slug conventions
• canonical-tag: When changing slugs, set up 301 redirects
• article-page-generator: Article URL slugs
• blog-page-generator: Blog post URL slugs
• glossary-page-generator: Glossary term slugs
• products-page-generator: Product page slugs
• customer-stories-page-generator: Case study page slugs
• resources-page-generator: Resource page slugs
• features-page-generator: Per-feature page slugs