Writing SEO Friendly URLs and Fixing Bad Ones

SEO friendly URLs are short, readable addresses that describe the page in the words your audience uses, separate those words with hyphens and avoid parameters that do not change the content. Writing good slugs for new pages is easy. The harder decision is whether to change an existing bad URL, because every change needs a permanent redirect and a short period of ranking uncertainty.

What makes SEO friendly URLs

The rules Google states directly

Google's URL structure guidance is short and specific. The points that matter most for most sites are:

• Use readable words rather than long ID numbers. A slug such as /services/office-fit-out/ tells a person something; /page?id=4471 does not.
• Separate words with hyphens, not underscores. Words joined with no separator at all are also discouraged.
• Use words in your audience's language, transliterated where that makes sense.
• Trim unnecessary parameters. Session IDs and tracking tags that do not change the content create duplicate addresses for the same page.
• Treat case consistently. Google treats uppercase and lowercase versions of a path as different URLs, so standardise on lowercase.
• Do not rely on fragments (the part after #) to load different content. Use real paths instead.

URL slug best practices for everyday publishing

A few habits keep slugs clean as a site grows:

• Describe the topic, not the headline. A blog title can change; the slug should still fit.
• Drop filler words such as "the", "and" and "how to" unless removing them changes the meaning.
• Leave out years and numbers that will date the page, such as "2024" or "top 10". If the article is updated next year, the URL will look stale.
• Never reuse a URL for unrelated content. If a page is retired, redirect it or let it return a 404, rather than putting a different topic at the same address.

Planning a URL structure that does not need fixing later

Most bad URLs come from a URL structure that was never planned, so every new section invents its own pattern.

Folders should reflect how people browse

Group pages into a small number of folders that match the main navigation: services, industries, blog, case studies. Two levels are usually enough. Deep paths such as /en/main/services/category/web/design/ add length without adding meaning, and they break whenever the menu changes.

Decide what belongs in the path and what does not

A useful test: will this element still be accurate in three years? If not, keep it out of the path.

Arabic URLs on bilingual UAE sites

Arabic script or transliteration

Google's guidance accepts words in the audience's language and notes that non ASCII characters in links should be percent encoded. In practice that means an Arabic slug works for search engines, and browsers display it in Arabic script in the address bar. The trade off is in sharing: when an Arabic URL is copied into email, some chat apps or a spreadsheet, it often turns into a long string of encoded characters that looks broken.

There are three common approaches:

1. Arabic slugs under an /ar/ folder. Best for readability for Arabic speakers in the browser, but less tidy when shared.
2. English slugs under an /ar/ folder. Simple to manage and share, and the page content and title still carry the Arabic language signals.
3. Transliterated slugs. Latin characters spelling Arabic words. These suit brand and place names but read awkwardly for longer phrases.

Whichever approach you pick, apply it consistently across the Arabic section, make sure the CMS stores and outputs the encoding correctly, and test that hreflang annotations point to the exact URLs the server returns. Our guide to bilingual SEO for Arabic and English pages covers hreflang and content parity in more detail.

When to fix bad URLs, and when to leave them

Changing a URL always carries some search risk. Google says that when URLs change, search visibility may fluctuate temporarily and that new URLs can take a few weeks or more to replace old ones, according to its guidance on site moves with URL changes.

Usually worth fixing

• Duplicate URLs for the same page, such as uppercase and lowercase versions, trailing slash variations, or parameters creating copies. These dilute signals and are fixed with redirects and canonical tags.
• Pages being moved anyway as part of a redesign, CMS change or domain change. If URLs are changing regardless, clean them at the same time instead of migrating bad patterns.
• Misleading slugs where the URL describes a different service or product from the one on the page, for example after a rebrand.

Usually better left alone

• A slug that is slightly long or includes an old year on a page that ranks well and earns links.
• Small stylistic issues, such as a filler word.

Hypothetical example: a Dubai clinic has a well ranked page at a URL that mentions "2021 offers". The content was updated and the offers are current. Rewriting the slug would add risk to its best performing page for a cosmetic gain. A better fix is to update the title and on page content, and use clean slugs for every new page from now on.

How to redirect old URLs safely

When the decision is to change, the redirect work is what protects rankings.

1. Build a URL map. List every old URL and its exact new destination in a spreadsheet. Pull URLs from Search Console, analytics and backlink reports, not only the CMS.
2. Use permanent server side redirects. Google's guidance on redirects explains that permanent redirects (301 or 308) tell Google the target should be treated as canonical, while temporary redirects do not.
3. Redirect one to one. Send each old page to its closest equivalent, not everything to the homepage.
4. Avoid chains. If an older redirect already points to the old URL, update it to point straight to the new one.
5. Update internal links, canonicals and hreflang so the site itself uses the new URLs and does not rely on its own redirects.
6. Submit an updated sitemap listing the new URLs.
7. Keep the redirects in place. Google suggests keeping them for as long as possible, generally at least a year. In practice, treat them as permanent.
8. Monitor. Watch Search Console coverage, 404 reports and landing page traffic for the affected URLs over the following weeks.

Platform notes

Each CMS handles URLs and redirects differently. Large catalogues raise their own issues, covered in our article on Shopify Plus SEO for large catalogues, and enterprise platforms have their own quirks, discussed in Sitecore SEO issues and how to raise them with your team.

A quick URL audit checklist

Use this list on an existing site before deciding what to change:

• Do uppercase, trailing slash and parameter versions of key pages redirect or canonicalise to one version?
• Are there URLs made only of IDs on important pages?
• Does the Arabic section follow one consistent slug approach?
• Do internal links point to final URLs rather than redirected ones?
• Does the XML sitemap list only canonical, indexable URLs?
• Is there a written slug policy for editors? This is the point most often missed.

Whether that policy is owned in house or by an agency is a separate decision, explored in choosing an in house SEO team or agency in Dubai.

Getting URL changes right on your site

Codeeo builds and maintains websites with clean URL structures from the start, and handles redirect mapping when sites are redesigned or moved to a new platform. If you are planning a rebuild, our site migration service covers URL mapping and redirects, and a technical SEO review can show which existing URLs are worth fixing. For new builds, see our website development and digital marketing and SEO services. With 200+ projects delivered across the UAE and the US and an office in Dubai, our team can review your URL map with you in person. Contact us to talk through your site.