Slug 

What is a Slug?

Slug – Slang for the portion of a URL that comes after the .com. For example, the homepage might be https://www.domain.com, but for the Contact Us page,theywould be added to the end of the URL to direct the browser to a page within the website i.e. https://www.domain.com/contact-us.

In WordPress, it is the part of a post or page’s permalink that comes after the domain name. For example, in the URL “https://mysite.com/first-blog-post”, the slug is “first-blog-post”. This element is usually automatically generated, and describes the page’s content or reflects its title:

Where Are They Found

All the public pages on your website have slugs. For example, you can find and edit slugs when creating the following:

• Posts: They are automatically generated for both standard and custom post types.
• Pages: When you create a page, slugs are an editable option.
• Author Archives: The slugs for author pages can be changed, but this requires a plugin that we’ll discuss later.
• Categories: We’ll cover more on how to do this in a moment, but in general, category are handled much like post slugs.
• Tags: Editing slugs for your tags can be approached in the same way as categories, but from the Tag menu in your dashboard.

We’ll discuss how to edit different kinds of in a moment. Overall, however, it’s important to keep in mind that any slug editing that takes place after you have published the relevant piece of content will need special attention, in order to avoid broken links and other errors.

Why Are They So Important? 

They are a key part of your website’s permalink structure. For this reason, when it comes to SEO, slugs are extremely important. What’s more, being able to change them manually can be a useful tool.

Sometimes They are auto-generated are very long and not as relevant as your hand-picked keywords might be. Therefore, we suggest optimizing your them before you publish each page or post. Custom ones can boost your SEO rankings, and let your readers know what to expect.