Slug Generator guide
Paste a headline and get a clean URL slug as you type: lowercase, accents stripped, punctuation gone, hyphens or underscores between words. Drop stop words with one checkbox and copy the result straight into your CMS.
What the generator does, step by step
Every keystroke runs the same five steps, in this order. First, the text is lowercased. Second, it is normalized with Unicode NFKD, which splits a letter like é into a plain e plus a separate accent mark, and the accent mark is thrown away. That is how café becomes cafe and crème brûlée becomes creme brulee.
Third, apostrophes are deleted outright, so don't becomes dont instead of don-t. Fourth, the ampersand is spelled out as and. Fifth, every remaining run of characters that is not a to z or 0 to 9 (spaces, commas, colons, slashes, emoji, anything) is replaced with a single separator, and separators at the start or end are trimmed.
If you tick remove stop words, the words a, an, the, and, or, of, to, in, on, for, with, at, and by are dropped after that. The length counter under the output shows the final slug in characters, and the copy button puts it on your clipboard.
Worked example
Input: Don't Panic: 10 Tips & Tricks for Café Owners. With hyphens and stop words kept, the output is dont-panic-10-tips-and-tricks-for-cafe-owners, 45 characters. Tick remove stop words and you get dont-panic-10-tips-tricks-cafe-owners, 37 characters. Note that the and created from & is itself a stop word, so it goes too.
Switch the separator to underscore and the first version becomes dont_panic_10_tips_and_tricks_for_cafe_owners. Same length, different separator. For a public web page, stick with the hyphen version.
Hyphens, not underscores
Google Search Central's URL structure guidelines recommend hyphens instead of underscores to separate words, because hyphens help users and search engines identify the separate concepts in a URL. Google says it does not recommend underscores for historical reasons: they are widely used to glue words together, the way programmers write variable_names.
Underscores still have a job. They are fine for filenames, database keys, image assets that are never indexed, and anywhere a system rejects hyphens. That is why the option exists. For anything Google should rank, pick hyphens and move on.
What makes a good slug
Short and descriptive. A reader should be able to guess the page from the URL alone. Three to five meaningful words is a good target: /guides/sourdough-starter says more than /guides/how-to-make-your-own-sourdough-starter-at-home-in-2026.
Put the main keyword in the slug, but do not stuff it. best-running-shoes-running-shoes-for-men helps nobody. Leave out dates and years unless the page is genuinely tied to one, because a slug with 2026 in it looks stale in 2027 and you cannot change it for free.
Keep it lowercase. Most servers treat URL paths as case-sensitive, so /About and /about can be two different pages. A lowercase-only rule avoids duplicate content and broken links from people typing the URL by hand.
Common mistakes
Stripping stop words blindly. Removing them usually helps, but it can change meaning. A page titled To Be or Not to Be loses almost everything, and how-to guides can read oddly without the to. Check the output before you publish it.
Letting the CMS auto-generate the slug from a long headline. WordPress and most platforms copy the full title, so a 14-word headline becomes a 90-character URL. Paste the headline here, trim it to the words that matter, and paste the slug back.
Editing slugs after launch. Once a URL is indexed and linked, changing it costs you. If you must, set up a 301 redirect from the old path to the new one so visitors and search engines follow along.
Numbers, non-Latin text, and edge cases
Digits are kept, so Top 10 Laptops becomes top-10-laptops. Symbols that carry meaning are lost, so C++ Tutorial becomes c-tutorial and 50% Off becomes 50-off. Rewrite those by hand, for example cpp-tutorial or fifty-percent-off, if the symbol matters.
The generator outputs only a to z, 0 to 9, and your separator. Accented Latin letters are converted, but scripts without a Latin equivalent, such as Chinese, Arabic, or Cyrillic, are removed rather than transliterated. For those sites, write the slug in English or use a dedicated transliteration step first.
How we calculate: sources
Frequently asked questions
What is a URL slug?
The slug is the readable part of a URL that identifies a page. In example.com/blog/best-running-shoes, the slug is best-running-shoes. It should describe the page in a few words.
Should I use hyphens or underscores in URLs?
Hyphens. Google Search Central recommends hyphens over underscores to separate words in URLs, since hyphens help users and search engines spot the separate words. Underscores are best kept for filenames and code.
How long should a URL slug be?
There is no official limit, but short wins. Aim for 3 to 5 meaningful words, roughly 25 to 50 characters. The tool shows the character count so you can trim as you go.
Should I remove stop words from slugs?
Usually, yes. Words like the, and, of, and for add length without meaning, so best-creme-brulee-recipe beats the-best-creme-brulee-recipe. Keep them when removing one changes the meaning.
What happens to accents and special characters?
Accents are stripped (cafe from café), apostrophes are removed (dont from don't), & becomes and, and every other run of symbols or spaces becomes a single separator.
Should I change the slug of a published page?
Only with a 301 redirect from the old URL. Changing a live slug without one breaks links and bookmarks and throws away the ranking signals the old URL earned.
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded to a server or stored by us.
Does the slug affect SEO rankings?
A little. Google uses words in the URL as a minor signal and shows the URL in results, so a readable slug can help clicks. Content and links matter far more.
Why does my slug start or end without a hyphen?
Leading and trailing separators are trimmed on purpose. A title like ...Hello! becomes hello, not -hello-.