URL Slug Generator
Convert any text into a clean URL-friendly slug.
By Syed Mubashir Ali · Last updated
Slugs that rank and get clicked
The formula is simple: lowercase, hyphens between words, no stop words, keep the keyword near the front. 'best-running-shoes-flat-feet' tells Google and the reader everything in five words. Compare that to 'post-12345' or 'Best_Running_Shoes_For_Flat_Feet!!': one says nothing, the other fights the URL spec on case and punctuation.
One more thing: match the slug to the headline's promise, not just its topic. If the post is 'How to Bake Sourdough in 4 Hours', the slug 'bake-sourdough-4-hours' keeps the specific hook that 'sourdough-guide' throws away. The slug is a headline in miniature: write it like one.
How to Use Slug Generator
- 1Type or paste a title, product name or heading into the box.
- 2The slug appears as you type: lower-case words joined by hyphens, with punctuation removed.
- 3Choose the separator: a hyphen (best for web addresses) or an underscore (common for file names and database keys).
- 4Untick 'lowercase' if you need to keep capital letters, for example for a file name.
- 5Copy the slug and use it in your URL, CMS permalink field or file name.
- 6Writing the post title first? Paste the full headline in, then trim the slug to its four or five most meaningful words before you publish.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a URL slug?
The readable part of a web address that identifies a page, such as 'how-to-make-cold-brew-coffee' in example.com/blog/how-to-make-cold-brew-coffee. A good slug tells people and search engines what the page is about before they click.
What does the generator change?
It removes accents (café becomes cafe), drops punctuation and symbols such as ?, !, & and apostrophes, turns spaces, underscores and hyphens into a single separator, lower-cases everything and trims separators from the ends. 'Café Déjà Vu: 10 Tips & Tricks!' becomes 'cafe-deja-vu-10-tips-tricks'.
Hyphens or underscores?
Use hyphens for web addresses. Google's guidance is to use hyphens to separate words in URLs, because it reads them as spaces between words; underscores are fine for file names, code identifiers and database keys.
How long should a slug be?
Short and specific: three to six meaningful words is plenty. Cut filler such as 'a', 'the' and 'and' when the meaning stays clear, and leave out dates unless the page is about a date, so the address still makes sense when you update the page.
Does it work with non-English text?
Accented Latin letters are converted to plain letters (ñ to n, ü to u). Letters from other scripts, such as Arabic, Urdu, Chinese or Cyrillic, are removed, because this generator makes plain-ASCII slugs; for those languages, write an English or transliterated version of the title first.
Should I change the slug of a published page?
Only with care. Changing it changes the page's address, so links and search results pointing to the old one break unless you set up a 301 redirect from the old address to the new one.
How long should a slug be?
Short enough to read at a glance: 3 to 6 words is the sweet spot. 'how-to-bake-sourdough' beats 'how-to-bake-sourdough-bread-at-home-for-beginners-step-by-step'. Words in a URL are only a very small ranking factor, and a bloated slug helps nobody. Cut filler words (the, and, for, with) aggressively.
Should I change the slug of a published post?
Almost never. The old URL may be bookmarked, linked from other sites, or indexed by Google. Changing it breaks all of those unless you set up a redirect, and even with a redirect, you lose a little ranking power. Get the slug right before you publish; leave it alone after.
About Slug Generator
The Slug Generator turns any title into a clean, URL-safe slug as you type. It strips accents and punctuation, joins words with hyphens or underscores, and lower-cases the result, giving you an address that's easy to read, share and type.
Clean slugs matter for search and for people. A descriptive address like /blog/solar-panel-payback is more likely to be clicked in search results than /blog/post?id=8812, and hyphen-separated words are what search engines recommend. Use the generator for blog permalinks, product pages, documentation, image file names or anchor links.
It runs in your browser, instantly, with nothing uploaded.
The slug is the part of the URL that humans actually read: yoursite.com/blog/how-to-bake-sourdough. Get it right and it tells readers (and Google) what the page is about before it loads. Get it wrong (a string of numbers, a truncated title, a pile of stop words) and you've wasted the most visible piece of on-page SEO you own.