Planning 04 — URL, Slug & Taxonomy Rules

This checklist defines the rules governing URLs, slugs, and taxonomies before any content is published. Its purpose is to eliminate collisions, prevent unintentional rewrites, and ensure long‑term structural consistency.

These rules apply globally and must be followed by all pages, posts, and future content types.

Checklist Objective

Establish a deterministic, documented set of rules for URL structure, slug creation, and taxonomy usage that remain stable over time.

Preconditions

• Planning 01 — Site Purpose & Scope Definition is completed and approved
• Planning 02 — Content System & Page Model is completed and approved
• Planning 03 — Navigation & Landing Page Map is completed and approved

Checklist Steps

1. Define URL ownership rules.
   • Confirm pages own canonical URLs
   • Confirm categories and taxonomies are non‑canonical
2. Establish page slug rules.
   • Use clean, human‑readable slugs
   • Do not reuse slugs across pages, posts, or taxonomies
   • Number planning pages explicitly
3. Establish post slug rules.
   • Slugs must be descriptive and execution‑focused
   • Avoid generic or ambiguous terms
4. Define taxonomy usage rules.
   • Categories are used only for posts
   • Categories are not landing pages
   • Category slugs use a non‑canonical suffix
   • Example: planning-archive
5. Define indexing intent for taxonomies.
   • Categories and tags remain noindex by default
   • Taxonomies are excluded from sitemaps unless explicitly approved
6. Confirm collision prevention rules.
   • No page slug may match a category or tag slug
   • No taxonomy slug may match a page or post slug
7. Review alignment with indexing and visibility rules.
   • Read titles only
   • Confirm URL rules support indexing controls
   • Related planning:
     • Planning 05 — Indexing, Visibility & Crawl Control

Required Output

• Global URL ownership rules
• Page slug standards
• Post slug standards
• Taxonomy usage and suffix rules
• Taxonomy indexing intent

Pause & Lock

Once approved, these URL and taxonomy rules become immutable inputs for publishing, navigation, and SEO configuration.

Outputs from this checklist are required context for Planning 05 — Indexing, Visibility & Crawl Control .