Slug Generator
Convert any text into a URL-safe slug. Handles unicode characters, contractions, and special characters.
How to Use the Slug Generator
Type or paste a page title into the input field and watch the URL slug update in real time. Adjust separators, casing, and options to fine-tune the output.
Paste any heading, article title, or phrase into the main input field. The generator starts transforming it immediately.
Choose a separator (hyphen, underscore, or period), set the output case, and toggle options like accent stripping, stop word removal, and 60-character truncation.
See the generated URL slug appear instantly below the input. The transformation pipeline shows each processing step and the intermediate result.
Click the Copy button to grab the slug for use in URLs, file paths, or anchor IDs. Use Bulk Mode to process multiple titles at once.
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How the Slug Generator Works
The tool runs your title through a multi-step transformation pipeline. Each step modifies the text incrementally, and you can see every intermediate result in the pipeline display.
Text Normalization
Your input is first normalized to Unicode NFD form, decomposing combined characters like e into separate base letters and diacritics. Combining marks are then stripped, converting accented characters to their ASCII equivalents. Ampersands are replaced with and, and smart quotes or em dashes are normalized to plain ASCII before any further processing.
Stopword Filtering
After lowercasing, common English stop words such as the, and, and a are removed as whole-word matches. This keeps slugs concise and focused on meaningful keywords. For example, "A Guide to the Best Practices" becomes "guide-best-practices". The toggle lets you disable this when stop words are part of a brand name or essential meaning.
Separator & Truncation
Remaining spaces are replaced with your chosen separator character β hyphen, underscore, or period. Runs of multiple separators are collapsed into one, and leading or trailing separators are trimmed. When the 60-character limit is enabled, the slug is cut at the nearest word boundary to avoid breaking mid-word, keeping URLs within common CMS and SEO length recommendations.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the tool handle non-ASCII characters?
The accent stripping step decomposes Latin diacritics (e.g. e, u, n) into their base letters and removes the combining marks. This converts cafe to cafe, Muller to Muller, and nino to nono. Non-Latin scripts like Chinese, Arabic, or Cyrillic have no built-in ASCII transliteration, so characters without equivalents are stripped entirely.
Are hyphens better than underscores for SEO?
Yes. Search engines like Google treat hyphens as word separators, so "my-post" is read as two distinct words. Underscores are treated as joiners, meaning "my_post" reads as a single word "mypost". Hyphens produce better keyword matching and are the standard across major CMS platforms.
What is the recommended maximum slug length?
Most SEO guidance recommends keeping slugs under 60 to 75 characters. Very long slugs dilute keyword relevance and get truncated in browser address bars and social share previews. The built-in 60-character truncation option cuts at the nearest word boundary to avoid awkward breaks.
Should I always remove stop words from slugs?
Removing stop words produces shorter, more keyword-focused slugs. However, some titles rely on stop words for meaning or branding β "The New Yorker" should not become "new-yorker" if "The" is part of the official name. Use the toggle to decide on a case-by-case basis.
Can I use this tool to generate slugs in bulk?
Yes. The Bulk Mode at the bottom of the tool lets you paste one title per line on the left side, and all corresponding slugs appear on the right. Click "Copy all" to grab every generated slug at once for use in a spreadsheet, CMS, or deployment script.
What happens if the same title is slugified twice?
The generator is idempotent β running the same title through it multiple times always produces the same slug. Duplicate separators are collapsed, leading and trailing separators are trimmed, and all normalization steps are deterministic. This makes it safe to re-generate slugs without breaking existing URLs.