What This Tool Does
This generator turns titles, blog post names, or any text into a URL-safe slug — lowercase, hyphens for spaces, no special characters, accents converted to plain letters. Useful for blog permalinks, product URLs, and SEO-friendly page paths.
Inputs Explained
- Source Text: The title or phrase to convert (e.g., 'My First Blog Post!').
- Separator: Hyphen (-) is standard for SEO. Underscore (_) is sometimes used.
- Strip Stop Words: Optional. Removes common words like 'a', 'the', 'and' for shorter slugs.
- Max Length: Truncate slug to this many characters. SEO best practice is 60-75.
How It Works
The text is converted to lowercase, accented characters are normalized to plain ASCII (e.g., café → cafe), all non-alphanumeric characters become the chosen separator, multiple separators collapse to one, and leading/trailing separators are trimmed.
Formula / Logic Used
URL Slug Generator
Convert any title or phrase into a clean, SEO-friendly URL slug.
Step-by-Step Example
Source: 10 Best Tips for Beginners — Café & Bistro Edition!
Standard slug: 10-best-tips-for-beginners-cafe-bistro-edition
Stop words removed: 10-best-tips-beginners-cafe-bistro-edition
Example URL: https://yoursite.com/10-best-tips-beginners-cafe-bistro-edition
Use Cases
- WordPress / blog permalinks: Generate clean URLs that match your post title automatically.
- E-commerce product URLs: Convert product names into SEO-friendly /products/wireless-bluetooth-headphones-black.
- Documentation pages: Create predictable section URLs for static site generators (Hugo, Jekyll, Next.js).
- Bulk URL migration: Convert hundreds of legacy URLs to a clean slug format during a site redesign.
- Filename-safe identifiers: Generate filenames from titles for downloads and exports.
Assumptions and Limitations
- Accent transliteration covers Latin alphabets (Spanish, French, German, Portuguese). Non-Latin scripts (Hindi, Chinese, Arabic) need a dedicated transliteration library.
- Stop word removal uses an English list. Customize for other languages by editing the script.
- Truncation tries to preserve word boundaries by trimming back to the last separator. Very short max lengths may cut mid-word.
- URL slugs are case-sensitive in some servers. This tool always lowercases for maximum compatibility.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a URL slug?
A URL slug is the part of a URL after the domain that identifies a specific page in a human-readable way. For example, in https://blog.com/best-laptops-2025, the slug is 'best-laptops-2025'.
Why are clean slugs important for SEO?
Search engines use slug words as ranking signals and display them in results. Clean slugs are easier to read, more clickable, and tell users what the page is about before they click.
Should I use hyphens or underscores in slugs?
Always use hyphens. Google explicitly recommends hyphens because they treat 'best-laptops' as two words, while 'best_laptops' is treated as one word, hurting search ranking for either word individually.
Is it OK to remove stop words from slugs?
Yes, in moderation. Removing 'a', 'the', 'and' makes slugs shorter and keeps the keywords prominent. Don't strip too aggressively or the slug becomes hard to read.
How long should a URL slug be?
Aim for 3–7 words and under 60 characters. Google may display longer slugs but truncate them in search results. Shorter slugs are also easier to share verbally and on print materials.
How are accented characters handled?
They are transliterated to plain ASCII — café becomes cafe, naïve becomes naive, München becomes munchen. This ensures the URL works on all systems without encoding issues.
Can I use Unicode (Chinese, Hindi) in slugs?
Modern browsers support Unicode URLs, but it's risky for SEO and sharing. This tool strips non-ASCII for maximum compatibility. For multilingual sites, generate slugs in each language separately.
Is my data sent to a server?
No. Slug generation runs entirely in your browser. Source text is never logged or transmitted.
Sources and References
- Google Search Central — URL Structure — Official Google guidance on SEO-friendly URLs.
- Moz — URL Best Practices — In-depth SEO guidance on slug structure.
- WordPress — Permalink Settings — How WordPress generates and customizes slugs.
- MDN — String.normalize() — Reference for the Unicode normalization used to strip accents.