Should I update an items slug after renaming item

Question

So we are currently using slugs in URLS as identifers, like website.com/item/my-nice-item where to slug is generated from the item name "My nice item!"

Now the user will be able to rename the item to something else, say "My cool item!".

Do you think a user expects the URL slug to also update to "my-cool-item" or should it stay "my-nice-item"? I think it's quite bad UX to invalidate saved URLs but at the same time it could cause confusion where the URL doesn't reflect the actual name.

One other option could be to generate one more slug that points to this item so both URLs work, however this increases the complexity.

Answer 1

Updating the slug is good for SEO but also harmful for SEO and UX (broken links). To overcome that problem you should keep the previous URL and redirect it to the new url. Redirect with HTTP code 301 (Moved Permanently) to prevent future requests to the old URL and inform search engines about the update.