Localizing Your Slugs

Ever innocently ask a language service provider (LSP) about translating webpages, only to be met with this puzzling question: "What would you like us to do with the slugs?"

In case you're wondering, a 'slug' refers to the descriptive part of a URL that identifies a specific page or resource on a website. It's typically written in plain English, with each word separated by hyphens.

Let's take an example: if you have a blog post titled 'How to Train Your Dog,' the corresponding URL would be 'https://www.dogsdogsdogs.com/blog/how-to-train-your-dog', and the slug would be '/how-to-train-your-dog.'

Why are slugs important? Well, they play a vital role in SEO, readability, shareability, and branding. Adopting a consistent and clear approach to slugs can boost your website's rankings in search results and attract more visitors.

Here are some key considerations:

Length limitations

Different systems, databases, and web servers have their own URL length restrictions. It's crucial to find out those limitations and ensure your slugs comply. As a general rule, keeping them under 255 characters is considered good practice.

Case sensitivity

While some web servers and operating systems treat URLs as case-sensitive, others treat them as case-insensitive. Mixing uppercase and lowercase letters may lead to loading inconsistencies across different platforms. To ensure compatibility, it's best to stick to lowercase letters for slugs.

Unicode and internationalization

With the increasing globalization of the web, supporting non-ASCII characters and internationalized domain names is essential. However, compatibility of Unicode characters can vary depending on the system, browser, and encoding used. Consider the target audience, potential encoding issues, and system compatibility when including non-ASCII characters in slugs.

Redirects and URL Changes

As your website evolves, you may need to update slugs or change URLs. Properly handling redirects, such as implementing 301 redirects, ensures that users and search engines are directed to the correct page even if the URL structure changes. This helps maintain website continuity and avoids broken links.

Content Management Systems (CMS) and URL routing

If you use a CMS or URL routing framework, understand how they handle slugs and URL patterns. Some systems have specific rules for generating and managing slugs, so familiarize yourself with the settings and guidelines provided.

Permalinks

Slugs are commonly used to create permalinks, which provide persistent, reliable, and shareable links to specific content. Permalinks allow users to bookmark or directly access the content, even if the website's structure or navigation changes.

For localization practices

I suggest following these guidelines. Please keep in mind, however, that these points are not comprehensive. You should consult with your web team as every tech stack is different:

• Keep slugs short and simple, regardless of the language. Use important keywords and limit the slug length to under 60 characters.
• If the foreign language has characters not represented in the ASCII character set, consider using transliteration to represent them in the slug. This enhances readability and avoids encoding issues.
• Use a consistent naming convention, such as hyphens or underscores, to separate words in the slug. This helps users understand and recognize the URLs for your pages.
• Avoid using language-specific words or phrases that may not be meaningful or recognizable to users in other countries.
• Consider the target audience and their culture when adapting slugs for foreign languages. Use familiar and meaningful words and phrases.

By following these practices, your slugs will be short, simple, and universally understandable, improving the user experience and facilitating content sharing and linking.

When the LSP asks you if you'd like the slugs translated, you'll appreciate the context of the question and be empowered to say 'yes,' 'no,' 'transliterate,' or provide some other informed answer.