Readable URLs: Hyphens, Lower Case and Few Parameters
A URL is the first thing people see in a search result, a chat message or a printed flyer. Clean
URLs like /guides/core-web-vitals tell readers what to expect before they click. Messy ones like
/Guides/Core_Web_Vitals?id=27&ref=nav&sort=asc&lang=en are harder to read, easier to mistype and
more likely to produce duplicate pages.
Why it matters
- Hyphens vs underscores. Google’s URL guidelines recommend hyphens to separate words.
core-web-vitalsreads as three words;core_web_vitalsmay be read as one token. - Upper case. Paths are case-sensitive on most servers, so
/Aboutand/aboutare two different URLs. Mixed case leads to duplicates, broken links and split ranking signals. - Many parameters. Every combination of parameters can be a separate URL for the same content, which wastes crawl budget and creates duplicates you then have to canonicalize.
None of these break a page on their own, which is why this check is informational.
What we check
We look at the links on the scanned page that point to the same host, count each unique URL once, and report how many have:
| Counted | When |
|---|---|
| Underscores | the path contains _ |
| Upper-case letters | the path contains A–Z |
| Many parameters | the query string has more than three parameters |
The report shows the totals and up to five examples. This is always reported as information and doesn’t affect your score.
How to improve
For new pages and sections, choose the pattern up front:
- lower case only;
- words separated by hyphens;
- short, descriptive paths without dates or IDs unless they’re meaningful;
- parameters only for things that really are filters or tracking.
For existing URLs, think twice before renaming. Changing a URL that already ranks means a 301 redirect from old to new, updated internal links, and a short dip while search engines catch up. It’s usually worth it only for:
- upper/lower-case duplicates: redirect every variant to the lower-case one;
- whole sections you’re restructuring anyway;
- parameter URLs you can replace with clean paths, such as
/shoes/redinstead of/shoes?color=red, if those pages are meant to be found in search.
Never change URLs without redirects, and keep the redirects for at least a year.
Further reading: Google Search Central: URL structure best practices.