A URL whose wording helps communicate the resource’s subject or purpose.
A descriptive URL communicates something useful about its destination. Instead of an unexplained identifier alone, its wording can indicate a service, product, category or guide. This describes the address as a whole, while a slug usually refers to one path segment. A URL can include both readable words and technical identifiers when the website needs them.
The goal is recognition, not stuffing the address with every related term. A short label that accurately reflects the resource can be more useful than a long string of locations, synonyms and marketing claims. Google recommends understandable URL wording and hyphens between words. Those conventions do not replace useful page content or sound site organization.
Good naming also considers how the page may evolve. A recurring resource may not need the current month embedded in its permanent address. Conversely, an archive for a specific event year may reasonably retain that year because it identifies a different resource. Decide what the URL represents before choosing words that may soon become misleading.
Takeaway: Name a page for its stable subject or purpose, and keep the address consistent with the content. Clear wording helps people recognize a destination; it does not promise a particular search position.
Example
A training company has a continuing guide to preparing for a forklift course and a separate schedule for its 2027 courses. It uses /forklift-course-preparation/ for the evergreen guide and a clearly dated address for the schedule archive. Readers can distinguish preparation advice from dates that may no longer be current.
What to check
Evaluate existing URLs before changing them. An opaque but functioning address is not automatically an urgent migration problem. If a redesign does require new paths, plan the old-to-new mapping and preserve access to the relevant content rather than sending every old URL to the homepage.
For more detail, see Google URL structure guidance.