How do I set CMS URL slugs in Webflow?

Set the Collection URL

The Collection URL is the slug of the folder that holds every item page in that Collection. Webflow generates it from the Collection name, and you can change it. A Blog Posts Collection with the Collection URL post produces yourdomain.com/post/your-blog-post. The last segment is the item slug, not the Collection name.

To set it on a new Collection, open the CMS tab, create the Collection, and edit the Collection URL before you click Create Collection. To change it later, open the CMS tab, hover the Collection, click the Settings icon, and edit the Collection URL.

Pick a folder name you can keep. Example: a studio publishes case studies at /case-studies/northwind-rebrand. The Collection URL is case-studies. If a static folder already uses projects, do not also use projects as the Collection URL. A folder and a Collection cannot share the same URL.

Set the slug on each item

Name and Slug are required fields on every Collection. Open the CMS tab, open the Collection, and open the item. Enter the public ending in the Slug field. For a case study titled Northwind rebrand, use northwind-rebrand. The published path is then /case-studies/northwind-rebrand.

Changes to a published item are saved as a draft. They stay off the live site until you publish the item or queue it for the next site publish. After you change the Collection URL itself, publish the site so the item paths update.

If these URLs should not be public yet, open the Collection template settings, go to Publish settings, and turn publishing off. The item pages stay unpublished. Turn the toggle on when you want them included in a site publish.

Add a parent folder for a longer path

You can place the Collection template under a parent folder when you want another level in the URL. Webflow's example is a parent folder named content and a blog Collection, which produces website.com/content/blog/example-post.

Open the Pages panel, hover the Collection template, and click the settings icon. Under General, choose the parent folder, then save. The template will not show under that folder name in the Pages panel. That is expected. Only static pages are organized inside folders in the page list. The parent folder setting is the control for a Collection template.

Create the static folder first if it does not exist yet. Then attach the template to it. Publish after you save so the longer path is the one visitors and search engines can request.

Redirect a path you already published

Renaming a Collection URL after publish breaks existing links until you add a 301. You do not need a separate rule for every item. Webflow documents one folder rule:

• Old path: /old-collection-url/(.*)
• Redirect to path: /new-collection-url/%1

Change the Collection URL first. Then open Site settings, Publishing, 301 redirects, add the old path and the new path, and publish. A paid Site plan, or a site in a Workspace with a paid Workspace plan, is required before you can add 301 redirects.

Example: /post/(.*) to /case-studies/%1 sends /post/northwind-rebrand to /case-studies/northwind-rebrand.

A single item rename is a separate rule, from /case-studies/northwind to /case-studies/northwind-rebrand. Change that item slug first. Webflow requires you to change the slug, or archive, delete, unpublish, or save the item as a draft, before you can redirect its old path. Add more specific rules before a broad wildcard. Webflow tries older redirects first, so a wildcard added earlier can catch the address before the specific rule runs.

301 redirects are relative to the root domain. They do not apply to a localized subdirectory. /post/northwind and /es/post/northwind need two rules.

Avoid reserved slugs

You cannot use a reserved slug as a Collection name or Collection URL. On a site with Ecommerce, product and category are reserved and cannot be used for a Collection. You also cannot enable Ecommerce if a CMS Collection, static page, or folder already uses those slugs.

These slugs cannot be used for any page URL: images, css, js, index, manifest, and static-manifest. The index rule also blocks a nested path such as /blog/index. Do not use index as an item slug. If Webflow warns that a slug is reserved, choose another word before you publish.