This technique (which I almost commented on in my original comment, but didn't) is brittle in a different way (making it so that attempts to search for the URL

This technique (which I almost commented on in my original comment, but didn't) is brittle in a different way (making it so that attempts to search for the URL have no well-known canonical representation), and quite simply totally undermines the entire argument being made (which is why I didn't comment on it) that someone can use the slug of a URL to decide whether or not they want to click on the content: you can change the URL to say anything you want. At this point, there is no value in bothering with having done this: it is just extra text in the URL for no concrete benefit. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/148454/why-does-stack-overflow-use-title-slugs/