Lesson 12 / 32

URL Structure & Best Practices

Design URLs that are clean, descriptive, and SEO-friendly.

What makes a good URL

Good URLs: use hyphens (not underscores), include keywords, are short, and are descriptive. Bad URLs: use numbers, special characters, or are cryptic. Example: /blog/seo-for-developers-2025 beats /blog/post-123.html.

Avoid query strings

Query strings (?page=1&sort=date) can create duplicate content and confuse crawlers. Use clean paths whenever possible: /blog/page/2 instead of /blog?page=2.

Stick with lowercase

/Blog and /blog are technically different URLs on servers with case-sensitive URLs, creating duplicates. Always use lowercase for consistency.

Test URL changes with 301s

If changing URL structure, test with 301 redirects on a small subset of pages first. Monitor rankings for 4-6 weeks before rolling out site-wide.