Slug Fields

What is a slug field?

A slug is the URL-friendly version of a name. It is the part of the URL that identifies a specific collection item. For a blog post titled "10 Tips for Better Design", the slug would be 10-tips-for-better-design, creating the URL /blog/10-tips-for-better-design.

Every CMS collection in Webflow has a built-in slug field. It is auto-generated from the item's name field by default.

How slug generation works

When you create a new CMS item, Webflow automatically generates a slug by:

1. Converting the name to lowercase.
2. Replacing spaces with hyphens.
3. Removing special characters (apostrophes, commas, periods, etc.).
4. Truncating to a reasonable length.

Name	Auto-generated Slug
10 Tips for Better Design	10-tips-for-better-design
Dr. Sarah O'Connor	dr-sarah-oconnor
FAQ: How Does Billing Work?	faq-how-does-billing-work
NEW! Summer 2025 Collection	new-summer-2025-collection

When to customize slugs

SEO optimization

Search engines use URLs as a ranking signal. Shorter, keyword-rich slugs perform better:

• Auto-generated: 10-tips-for-better-web-design-in-2025-and-beyond
• Optimized: better-web-design-tips

Human readability

Clean URLs are easier to share and remember:

• Auto-generated: dr-sarah-oconnor-md-phd
• Optimized: sarah-oconnor

Avoiding collisions

If two items have similar names, their auto-generated slugs might collide. Webflow appends a number to duplicates (my-post, my-post-2), but manually setting distinct slugs is cleaner.

The slug is the URL path

The slug directly determines the URL for the item's collection page:

https://yoursite.com/{collection-path}/{slug}

For example:

• Collection path: /blog
• Slug: better-design-tips
• Full URL: https://yoursite.com/blog/better-design-tips

This URL is what search engines index, what users bookmark, and what gets shared on social media.

Changing slugs after publishing

This is the most common slug mistake. When you change a slug on a published item:

• The old URL stops working — anyone who bookmarked, linked to, or shared the old URL gets a 404 error.
• Search engine rankings are lost — Google indexed the old URL. The new URL starts from scratch.
• Backlinks break — external sites linking to your content now link to a dead page.

How to safely change a slug

If you must change a slug after publishing:

1. Set up a 301 redirect — redirect the old URL to the new one. In Webflow, go to Site Settings → Hosting → 301 Redirects.
2. Update internal links — find and fix any links within your site that point to the old URL.
3. Update external references — if you shared the URL in newsletters, social media bios, or partner sites, update those too.
4. Wait for reindexing — Google will eventually discover the redirect and transfer ranking to the new URL. This can take weeks.

Slug best practices

Keep slugs short

• Good: /blog/design-tips
• Avoid: /blog/10-amazing-tips-for-better-web-design-that-will-change-your-life

Use keywords

Include the primary keyword for the content:

• Good: /services/web-design
• Avoid: /services/service-item-47

Avoid dates in slugs

Unless content is explicitly time-bound (news articles, event recaps), avoid dates:

• Good: /blog/responsive-design-guide
• Avoid: /blog/2025-03-15-responsive-design-guide

Dated slugs make content look stale and are harder to share.

Use hyphens, not underscores

Google treats hyphens as word separators but underscores as joiners:

• Good: web-design-tips (three words)
• Avoid: web_design_tips (one "word" to Google)

Sync considerations

When syncing from Airtable:

• Airtable does not have a native slug field. Slugs are typically stored in a formula field or a single line text field.
• Trellis can auto-generate slugs from the primary field during sync, or you can map an existing Airtable field to the Webflow slug.
• If you manage slugs in Airtable, ensure they follow the formatting rules: lowercase, hyphens only, no special characters.
• Slug collisions during sync will cause errors. Trellis warns you about duplicate slugs before pushing to Webflow.

Tips

1. Set slugs intentionally for important content — let auto-generation handle most items, but manually optimize slugs for high-traffic pages like flagship blog posts and key service pages.
2. Never change a slug on published content without a redirect — this is the number one cause of broken links and lost SEO ranking in CMS-driven sites.
3. Keep a slug log — if you change slugs frequently, maintain a simple spreadsheet of old → new mappings so you can set up redirects.
4. Test before publishing — preview the full URL before going live. Catch awkward auto-generated slugs (like new-summer-2025-collection) before they get indexed.
5. Use slugs for internal linking — when linking between CMS items in rich text, use the slug-based URL. This keeps links working even if the item's name changes (as long as the slug stays the same).