Free Slug Generator — Convert Text to URL-Friendly Slugs

Generate a Slug

A slug generator converts text into a URL-friendly string by removing special characters, replacing spaces with hyphens, and lowercasing everything. Paste a single title or multiple lines for batch conversion.

Examples

See how different inputs are converted to clean slugs:

How Slugification Works

Slugification converts any text into a URL-safe string. Here is the step-by-step process this tool follows:

1. Unicode normalization (NFKD): Decomposes accented characters into base letter + diacritic. For example, é becomes e + combining accent mark.
2. Strip diacritics: Remove combining marks (accents, umlauts, tildes), leaving plain ASCII letters.
3. Lowercase: Convert all characters to lowercase for URL consistency.
4. Remove non-alphanumeric: Replace any character that isn't a letter, number, or space with a space.
5. Remove stop words (optional): Strip common filler words like "the", "a", "is", "on".
6. Replace spaces: Swap spaces for the chosen separator (hyphen or underscore).
7. Collapse consecutive separators: Turn -- into -.
8. Trim separators: Remove leading and trailing separators.
9. Truncate (optional): Cut to the max length at a word boundary to avoid broken words.

How Characters Are Handled

Best Practices for URL Slugs

Slug Conventions by Platform

Different platforms handle slugs in slightly different ways. Here is how major CMS and frameworks generate slugs:

Regardless of platform, the same core rules apply: lowercase, hyphens, no special characters, and keep it short.

How to Slugify in Code

If you need slug generation in your application, here are minimal implementations for common languages:

function slugify(text) {
  return text
    .normalize('NFKD')
    .replace(/[\u0300-\u036f]/g, '')
    .toLowerCase()
    .trim()
    .replace(/[^a-z0-9\s-]/g, '')
    .replace(/[\s-]+/g, '-')
    .replace(/^-+|-+$/g, '');
}
// slugify("Café & Résumé!") → "cafe-resume"

import re, unicodedata

def slugify(text):
    text = unicodedata.normalize('NFKD', text)
    text = text.encode('ascii', 'ignore').decode('ascii')
    text = text.lower().strip()
    text = re.sub(r'[^a-z0-9\s-]', '', text)
    text = re.sub(r'[\s-]+', '-', text)
    return text.strip('-')
# slugify("Café & Résumé!") → "cafe-resume"

function slugify(string $text): string {
    $text = transliterator_transliterate(
        'Any-Latin; Latin-ASCII; Lower()', $text
    );
    $text = preg_replace('/[^a-z0-9\s-]/', '', $text);
    $text = preg_replace('/[\s-]+/', '-', $text);
    return trim($text, '-');
}
// slugify("Café & Résumé!") → "cafe-resume"

For production use, consider established libraries: slugify (npm), python-slugify (PyPI), or cocur/slugify (Composer). They handle edge cases like CJK characters, language-specific transliteration, and custom replacement maps.

Common Use Cases

• Blog posts: Turn article titles into readable URLs — /blog/javascript-array-methods
• Product pages: Create clean URLs from product names — /products/wireless-bluetooth-headphones
• Category pages: Generate consistent category slugs — /categories/outdoor-gear
• File naming: Convert document titles to safe filenames — project-proposal-2024.pdf
• Database keys: Create human-readable identifiers for records
• API endpoints: Design RESTful resource paths — /api/v1/user-profiles
• Anchor links: Generate IDs for heading anchors — #getting-started
• CSS class names: Derive class names from dynamic content (using underscore separator)

Common Mistakes

• Keyword stuffing: /seo-tips-seo-guide-seo-tutorial-seo-help looks spammy to both search engines and users. Use your keyword once, naturally.
• Using IDs only: /products/12345 tells nobody what the page is about. Always include a descriptive slug.
• Including file extensions: /about-us.html is unnecessary on modern web servers. Use /about-us instead.
• Not handling accents: URLs with raw accented characters like /café-menu get percent-encoded into /caf%C3%A9-menu, which is ugly and harder to share.
• Trailing slashes inconsistency: /about and /about/ can be treated as different URLs. Pick one convention and stick with it. Use canonical URLs to prevent duplicates.
• Mixed case: /About-Us and /about-us may resolve differently on case-sensitive servers (most Linux servers). Always use lowercase.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a URL slug?

A URL slug is the part of a web address that identifies a specific page in a human-readable format. In example.com/how-to-bake-bread, the slug is how-to-bake-bread. Slugs use lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens instead of spaces or special characters.

Why are slugs important for SEO?

Descriptive slugs help search engines understand page content. A slug like /best-running-shoes-2024 signals relevance better than /post?id=847. Users are also more likely to click links with readable URLs in search results. Google has confirmed that keywords in URLs are a minor ranking factor.

Should I use hyphens or underscores?

Use hyphens (-) for URL slugs. Google's algorithms treat hyphens as word separators but treat underscores as joiners. For filenames or programming identifiers, underscores are sometimes preferred.

How long should a slug be?

Keep slugs under 60 characters and 3-5 words when possible. Shorter slugs are easier to read, share, and remember. Google truncates URLs in search results at approximately 60 characters. Remove unnecessary filler words while keeping the meaning clear.

What is the difference between a slug and a URL?

A URL is the complete web address: https://example.com/blog/my-article. A slug is the human-readable identifier at the end: my-article. The slug is one component of the URL path, alongside the protocol, domain, and any directory structure.

How do I handle accented characters?

Convert accented characters to their ASCII equivalents: é → e, ü → u, ñ → n. This process is called transliteration. It uses Unicode normalization (NFKD decomposition) to separate base characters from diacritical marks, then strips the marks.

Should I remove stop words from slugs?

It depends on context. Stop words like "a", "the", "is", and "for" can be removed to shorten slugs. how-to-create-a-url-slug becomes create-url-slug. Remove them if the slug is too long, but keep them if removal makes the slug confusing or changes the meaning.

Can I change a slug after publishing?

You can, but changing a slug creates a new URL, which breaks existing links and can lose search rankings. If you must change it, set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. This tells search engines the page has permanently moved and passes most ranking signals to the new URL.

What characters are allowed in slugs?

For maximum compatibility, limit slugs to: lowercase letters (a-z), numbers (0-9), and hyphens (-). While URLs technically support many more characters via percent-encoding, clean ASCII slugs are easier to read, share, and type.

What is the difference between a slug and kebab-case?

They are structurally similar — both use lowercase words separated by hyphens. The difference is context. "Slug" refers to a URL-friendly page identifier (a web concept), while "kebab-case" is a general naming convention used in programming for variables, CSS classes, and file names.

How does this slug generator handle emoji?

Emoji are removed during slugification because they are not part of the ASCII character set and would be percent-encoded in URLs. A title like "Best Tools 🚀" becomes best-tools.

Does this tool store my text?

No. All processing happens in your browser using JavaScript. Your text is never sent to any server. You can verify this by using the tool offline after the page loads.

Related Tools

• URL Encoder/Decoder — encode and decode special characters in URLs
• Meta Tag Generator — create SEO meta tags for your pages
• SERP Preview Tool — preview how your URL and title appear in search results
• Text Case Converter — convert text between camelCase, snake_case, and more
• Character & Word Counter — check slug and title length

Privacy & Limitations

• Client-side only. No data is sent to any server. No cookies, no tracking of text entered.
• ASCII transliteration only. This tool converts accented Latin characters (é, ü, ñ, etc.) to ASCII equivalents. It does not transliterate non-Latin scripts (Chinese, Arabic, Cyrillic, etc.) — those characters are removed. For non-Latin slugs, use language-specific slugify libraries.
• No uniqueness check. This tool generates slugs from text but does not check whether the slug already exists on your website. Your CMS or application should handle uniqueness (typically by appending a number: my-post-2).

Slug Generator FAQ