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A URL is a page's unique address on the web. For Google, it plays several simultaneous roles: a topical relevance signal (words in the URL contribute modestly to ranking), a site structure signal (directory hierarchy reflects architecture), and a CTR factor (a readable URL reassures the user about the content they'll find).
Best practices for an SEO-friendly URL
An optimized URL is lowercase, uses hyphens as separators (never underscores or spaces), is as short as possible while remaining descriptive, contains the main keyword without stuffing, and avoids dynamic parameters (?id=123, &session=xyz) that create duplication issues. Stop words (the, a, of) can be removed to lighten the URL.
Changing a URL: essential precautions
Changing the URL of an already-indexed page must always be accompanied by a 301 redirect to the new URL. Without it, the authority accumulated by the old URL is lost, existing backlinks become 404 errors, and users who bookmarked or shared the old address reach an empty page.
URLs and LLMs
LLMs in RAG mode analyze URLs in their search results to qualify the relevance of a source. A descriptive URL containing the query's terms is an additional positive signal for selection as a cited source.
