🔗 Slug Generator: Turn Any Title Into a Clean URL Slug

What is the Slug Generator?

A slug is the human readable part of a URL that identifies a specific page, the piece that usually sits after the last slash, such as "hello-world-my-first-post" in example.com/blog/hello-world-my-first-post. A url slug maker exists because raw titles are full of things a URL cannot safely carry: spaces, capital letters, punctuation, accented letters and symbols. This tool takes the messy title and produces a predictable, lowercase, dash separated string that browsers, servers and search engines all handle the same way.

The conversion follows a fixed order, and that order matters. First the text is trimmed of surrounding spaces and lowercased (you can toggle lowercasing off if you truly need to keep case). Next the string is normalized with Unicode NFD, which splits an accented character like "e" with an acute mark into a plain letter plus a separate combining mark, and those combining marks (the range U+0300 to U+036F) are then stripped, so "cafe" with an accent becomes plain "cafe". The ampersand is replaced with the word "and" because "&" has a reserved meaning in URLs. Then every run of characters that is not a letter or digit is replaced with your chosen separator, repeated separators are collapsed into one, and any separator left dangling at the start or end is removed.

That last cleanup step is what separates a real slugify text routine from a naive find and replace. If you only swap spaces for dashes, a title like "Wait... really?!" leaves you with "wait------really--" full of empty gaps and trailing dashes. Collapsing runs and trimming the edges gives you the clean "wait-really" instead. The same logic quietly handles double spaces, tabs, emoji, quotation marks and any other stray symbol without you having to think about each case.

The optional maximum length is there for a practical reason: very long slugs get truncated in search results, look cluttered when shared, and can bump into old path length limits. When you set a maximum, the tool does not chop a word in half. It cuts at the limit, then steps back to the last whole word by trimming to the previous separator, so a 50 character cap on a long headline gives you a tidy slug that ends on a real word rather than "importan". This is the difference between a slug that reads cleanly and one that looks broken.

Choosing between a hyphen and an underscore is a genuine SEO decision, not just a style preference. Search engines have long treated the hyphen as a word separator, meaning "seo-friendly-url" is read as three words, while an underscore historically joined words together so "seo_friendly_url" could be read as one token. For public web pages a hyphen is the safe default and the widely recommended choice. Underscores still have their place in file names, code identifiers and internal systems where that convention is expected, which is why this permalink generator offers both.

Because the whole process is deterministic and runs client side, you can trust it with unpublished drafts, private project names or client titles without anything being uploaded. The same title always produces the same slug, which is exactly what you want when you are creating a permalink that should never change once a page is live and other sites start linking to it.

When to use it

• Creating a clean, SEO friendly URL for a new blog post or article from its headline before you publish it.
• Generating a stable permalink for a product, category or landing page so the address stays readable and shareable.
• Turning a document title, video title or event name into a filename safe string with no spaces or special characters.
• Slugifying non English titles that contain accented letters so the URL uses plain ASCII that every browser handles the same way.
• Producing short, capped slugs for social sharing or old systems that limit how long a URL path can be.
• Batch checking that titles with symbols, ampersands or emoji still convert to a valid, gap free clean URL.

How to use the Slug Generator

1. Type or paste your text or title into the input box.
2. Choose a separator: hyphen (the SEO friendly default) or underscore.
3. Leave lowercase ticked for a standard web slug, or untick it if you must keep the original case.
4. Optionally set a maximum length so long titles are trimmed back to the last whole word.
5. Read the generated slug in the output box and click Copy slug to place it on your clipboard.

Formula & method

Worked examples

How common titles convert to a slug (hyphen separator, lowercase on)

Hyphen versus underscore in URL slugs

What each step in the process removes or changes

Common mistakes to avoid

• Using underscores for public page URLs. Search engines treat a hyphen as a word separator but historically read an underscore as joining words together. For a blog post slug or any public clean URL, keep the hyphen default so each word is recognized separately.
• Leaving accented characters in the URL. Titles with accents can produce percent encoded, unreadable URLs if not handled. A proper slug generator normalizes with NFD and strips the combining marks so accented letters become plain ASCII, which every browser and server handles the same way.
• Chopping the slug in the middle of a word. When you cap the length, a naive cut can leave a half word like "generat". Trimming back to the last whole word keeps the slug readable. This tool does that automatically when you set a maximum length.
• Forgetting to replace the ampersand. The "&" symbol has a reserved role in URLs and query strings, so leaving it in can break links. Converting it to the word "and" keeps the meaning while producing a safe, readable slug.
• Changing a slug after the page is live. Once a page is published and other sites link to it, changing the permalink breaks those links and loses ranking signals unless you add a redirect. Decide on the slug before publishing and keep it stable.
• Stuffing every keyword into the slug. A slug packed with repeated keywords looks spammy and gets truncated in results. Keep it short and descriptive, ideally the core of the title, and use the maximum length option to enforce a tidy limit.

Glossary

Slug

The human readable part of a URL that identifies a page, usually lowercase words joined by hyphens.

Permalink

A permanent URL for a specific page that is not meant to change once published, of which the slug is a part.

Slugify

To convert a title or piece of text into a clean, URL safe slug by removing spaces, accents and special characters.

Separator

The character placed between words in a slug, typically a hyphen for public URLs or an underscore in code and file names.

NFD normalization

A Unicode form that splits accented characters into a base letter plus a separate combining mark, making accents easy to strip.

Combining mark

A Unicode character (range U+0300 to U+036F) that adds an accent to the letter before it and is removed during slug creation.

Slug length

The number of characters in the slug. Shorter slugs read better in links and are less likely to be truncated in search results.

SEO friendly URL

A URL that is short, readable and keyword aware, which helps both users and search engines understand what the page is about.

Frequently asked questions