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 (2025)

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

Extract primary keyword from title or target keyword
Summarize in 3–5 words (don't copy full title)
Remove stop words (the, a, and, or) unless needed for readability
Lowercase, hyphenate, validate length < 60 chars
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