What is an SEO-friendly URL?

An SEO-friendly URL is a web address that is short, readable and descriptive, so visitors and search engines can tell from the address alone what the page is about. Such a URL usually contains the main topic, uses lowercase letters with hyphens and avoids unnecessary parameters or codes.

Why is an SEO-friendly URL important?

Clarity: visitors understand the address and trust a link with readable words more readily.
Context when shared: when someone pastes the bare URL, it already says what the page is about.
Order: a logical structure makes your website easier to manage and crawl.

Examples of an SEO-friendly URL

Good: example.com/running-shoes/women/
Good: example.com/blog/how-to-run-an-seo-audit/
Bad: example.com/index.php?id=4821&cat=7

How do you create an SEO-friendly URL?

Keep URLs short, use the main keyword, write in lowercase and separate words with a hyphen. Leave out stop words and parameters, and only change an existing URL when it is really necessary. If you do, set up a 301 redirect from the old address to the new one. See on-page SEO.

SEO-friendly URL