What is a URL?

A URL, short for Uniform Resource Locator, is the address you type into a browser to reach a specific page, file or resource on the internet. Every page on your website has its own URL, which tells browsers and search engines exactly where to find it.

The basic structure of a URL

A URL is made up of several parts that together define how and where a resource is loaded. At a simple level, a URL looks like https://www.example.com/product/shoes?color=black. The protocol (for example https) explains how data is transferred. The domain (for example example.com) is your unique web address, and the path (for example /product/shoes) shows the location of a specific page or item.

On top of this, a URL can contain a query string which starts with a question mark and passes parameters such as filters, tracking codes or session IDs. It can also end with a fragment, starting with #, that points to a specific section on a page. As a growth-focused marketer or founder, understanding how a URL is built helps you keep tracking clean and avoid breaking your analytics.

Why URLs matter for SEO and analytics

For SEO, a clear URL sends strong relevance signals to search engines. A readable URL that reflects the page topic is easier for users to trust and more likely to earn quality backlinks from other sites. Consistent URL structures also support smart internal linking strategies that boost rankings across your domain.

For analytics, using a stable URL helps you avoid duplicate pages, inflated traffic numbers and tracking issues. Marketers often add UTM parameters to a URL to track campaign performance, for example in Google Ads or Meta campaigns. Well managed URLs allow you to compare traffic sources accurately and make data driven decisions.

Best practices for clean, SEO friendly URLs

  • Keep each URL short, descriptive and human readable, using words not random IDs where possible.
  • Use lowercase letters and hyphens to separate words, and avoid special characters that can break links.
  • Structure your URL paths logically according to site architecture, such as /blog/ or /category/product-name.
  • Avoid changing a URL once a page is live, or implement proper redirects if you must update it.
  • Control tracking parameters in your URL so they do not create unwanted duplicate versions of the same page.

Following these principles keeps your URL structure clean, scalable and easier to manage as your B2B or e commerce site grows.

Working with URLs in fast moving marketing teams

If you run SEO at scale, you will often analyse thousands of URL variations across categories, filters and languages. Tools such as the 6th Man SEO extension or the Outbound Links Downloader can speed up your audits and help you understand how each URL performs in search.

At strategy level, your URL design is part of broader technical SEO and content planning. It affects how quickly you can roll out new landing pages, how clearly search engines understand your site and how easily your team can measure the impact of each campaign. If you want to go deeper into how URLs influence rankings and crawling, the articles in our SEO insights hub are a good next step.