Free URL Slug Generator
Turn any title into a clean, SEO-friendly URL slug in seconds. Choose separator, remove stop words, cap length and pick from 6 ready-made variants. No sign-up required.
100% Private
Multi-language
6 Variants
Works on Mobile
Enter Your Text
Paste any title, heading or sentence. Works with accented letters and non-Latin scripts.
Shown in the preview but not part of the slug itself.
Google recommends hyphens — underscores join words instead of separating them.
Generated Slugs
Showing 0 variants
= recommended length
Type a title above to see 6 slug variants appear instantly.
Best practice: Use 3–5 words, lowercase letters, digits and hyphens only. Keep slugs under 60 characters so Google doesn't truncate them in search results.
What Is a URL Slug?
A URL slug is the human-readable part of a URL that identifies a specific page. It comes after the domain and any folder path, and it's the last segment of the URL.
For example, in this URL:
https://example.com/blog/how-to-merge-pdf
…the slug is how-to-merge-pdf. It's the part that tells both users and search engines what the page is about.
Why slugs matter for SEO
- Keywords in URLs are a (minor) ranking signal. Google confirmed years ago that keywords in URLs are used as a small ranking factor.
- Click-through rate. Users are more likely to click a clean, readable URL than
?p=1234&cat=9. - Link sharing. Short slugs are easier to share, remember and type.
- Anchor text. When someone links to your page and uses the URL as anchor text, keywords in the slug reinforce relevance.
Slug rules that matter
- Use hyphens, not underscores. Google treats
how-to-mergeas three words buthow_to_mergeas one. - Lowercase only. URLs are case-sensitive on most servers.
/Aboutand/aboutcan be two different pages. - Keep it short. 3–5 words, ideally under 60 characters. Google shows about 50–60 characters in search results.
- Front-load the keyword. Put the most important word first:
/merge-pdf-filesbeats/how-to-easily-merge-pdf-files. - Remove stop words. a, an, the, and, or, of, to, for, in, on, with rarely help and make the slug longer.
- Never use special characters. Only
a-z,0-9and hyphens. No spaces, dots, slashes or symbols. - Don't change slugs after publishing. If you must, set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one.
Transliteration: non-English characters
URLs technically support Unicode, but accented characters and non-Latin scripts cause issues:
- They get percent-encoded:
cafébecomescaf%C3%A9— ugly and hard to read. - Some servers and CDNs don't handle them consistently.
- Users typing the URL manually can't easily enter accented characters.
That's why our generator transliterates accents automatically: café → cafe, naïve → naive, München → munchen.
Common slug mistakes
- Auto-generated slugs from CMS. WordPress by default uses your title — "How to Merge PDF Files (Step-by-Step Guide!)" becomes
how-to-merge-pdf-files-step-by-step-guide. Clean it up. - Dates in slugs.
/2026/07/15/merge-pdf/is fine for news sites but ages poorly for evergreen content. - IDs only.
/post/3847tells users nothing and wastes the SEO opportunity. - Too long. Slugs over 100 characters get truncated when shared on social media.
- Mixed case.
/How-To-Merge-PDFis ugly and requires uppercase URLs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a URL slug?
A URL slug is the part of a URL that identifies a specific page in a human-readable way. For example, in
https://example.com/how-to-merge-pdf, the slug is how-to-merge-pdf. Good slugs are short, lowercase, keyword-rich and readable.Should URL slugs use hyphens or underscores?
Use hyphens. Google treats hyphens as word separators but treats underscores as word joiners. So
how-to-merge-pdf is seen as four words, while how_to_merge_pdf is seen as one long word.How long should a URL slug be?
Aim for 3 to 5 words — usually 30 to 60 characters. Google shows the first 50–60 characters in search results, and shorter slugs are easier to read, share and remember.
Should I include stop words in my slug?
Usually no. Words like a, the, and, of, to rarely help SEO and make slugs longer. Our generator strips them automatically (you can turn that off).
Can I change a slug after publishing?
Technically yes, but you must set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one to preserve rankings and avoid 404 errors. Try to get the slug right before publishing.
Is this slug generator free?
Yes — 100% free, no sign-up, runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is ever sent to a server.