{"id":236,"slug":"rule-url-design-as-permanence-design","title":"RULE: Treat URL/slug design as a 10-year decision. Never let a slug change without a 301 redirect.","kind":"rule","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["claude-code","dev","candid-team"],"topics":["seo-content","information-architecture","longevity-architecture"],"reference_body":"**Rule:** Every Candid client URL is designed for **permanence**. Slug renames require a 301 redirect from the old path. The redirect map is maintained for the life of the site — never garbage-collected.\n\n**Why:** Zittrain et al. (Harvard Law 2014): 50% of URLs in Supreme Court opinions suffer reference rot ([[zittrain-reference-rot-supreme-court-2014]]). When the open web's most prestigious citation infrastructure rots at 50%, the typical SMB site's URL discipline is much worse. Every broken inbound link is a lost citation, a degraded SEO signal, a frustrated returning visitor.\n\nMueller on internal linking: *\"one of the biggest things that you can do on a website\"* — see [[mueller-internal-linking-biggest-thing]]. The same logic applies to **inbound** links from elsewhere — they degrade silently when URLs change.\n\n**How to apply:**\n- Slug taxonomy planned at IA phase, not bolted on later (see [[url-structure-patterns-by-pattern]])\n- Every redirect lives in version control alongside the code (htaccess, Nginx conf, Next.js redirects.json — anywhere reviewable)\n- Quarterly check: 404 rate trend. Spike = broken inbound links somewhere; fix the redirect\n- On rebuild: redirect map is the **first deliverable**, not the last (see [[sej-892-migrations-523-day-recovery]])","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"zittrain-reference-rot-supreme-court-2014","title":"Zittrain et al. (Harvard Law 2014): 50% of URLs in U.S. Supreme Court opinions suffer reference rot","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"sej-892-migrations-523-day-recovery","title":"Search Engine Journal (Jan 2025): 523-day average recovery from domain migration (n=892); 17% never recover by 1,000 days","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-built-to-last","title":"Research brief: Built to Last — why most SMB sites rebuild every 3-4 years (piece 5 of 15)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-05-22T19:58:12.895Z","updated_at":"2026-05-22T19:58:12.895Z"}