How to set human-friendly URLs (page addresses)

Human-Friendly URLs (or Readable URLs) are web addresses that are easy for people to read and understand. These URLs use descriptive words to convey the content of the page instead of random strings of characters or numbers.

Example:

• Not Human-Friendly URL: https://example.com/index.php?id=12345&cat=678
• Human-Friendly URL: https://example.com/blog/what-is-seo

The second example is much easier to understand because it immediately shows that the page is a blog post about “What is SEO.”

Why it’s important

User Experience: Human-friendly URLs are easier to remember and share.

SEO Benefits: Search engines like Google prefer these URLs because they often include keywords that describe the page content, improving visibility.

How to write a human-friendly URL

Use relevant keywords: Include words in the URL that describe the content of the page.

Separate words with hyphens: Use hyphens (-) to separate words, not underscores (_) or a continuous string.

• Example: my-article-about-cats instead of my_article_about_cats or myarticleaboutcats.

Avoid unnecessary parameters: Remove extra symbols, numbers, or parameters that don’t add meaningful information to the page.

• Example: https://example.com/products/red-shoes rather than https://example.com/products.php?id=56&color=red.

Keep URLs short but informative: A URL should be concise and meaningful, giving an immediate sense of the page content.

Example of good and bad URLs

• Bad URL: https://example.com/product/12345
• Good URL: https://example.com/products/waterproof-jacket

In the good example, users can instantly understand that the page is about a waterproof jacket.

Setting human-friendly URLs

When creating a new page, you have the option to define a custom URL for it. Following these tips will help you create readable, memorable, and search-engine-optimized URLs.