Slug Generator

A URL slug is the human-readable portion of a URL that identifies a specific page on a website. It typically appears after the domain name and any directory paths — for example, in 'example.com/blog/how-to-write-clean-code', the slug is 'how-to-write-clean-code'. Slugs are derived from the page title or topic and are formatted to be URL-safe.

Good slugs improve both user experience and search engine optimization. A visitor can glance at a URL and understand what the page is about, which increases trust and click-through rates from search results, social media shares, and other referral sources.

Creating SEO-friendly URLs goes beyond simply converting a title to lowercase with hyphens. Best practices include keeping slugs short and descriptive, using primary keywords, removing unnecessary stop words, and avoiding dynamic query parameters when possible.

Search engines give slight ranking preference to URLs that contain relevant keywords. More importantly, clean URLs improve click-through rates — users are more likely to click a result with a readable URL than one full of random characters and IDs. A well-structured URL hierarchy also helps search engines understand your site architecture.

Start with your page title or primary keyword phrase. Convert it to lowercase, replace spaces and special characters with hyphens, and remove any characters that aren't letters, numbers, or hyphens. Collapse multiple consecutive hyphens into one, and trim hyphens from the start and end.

For international content, transliterate accented characters to their ASCII equivalents before generating the slug — é becomes e, ñ becomes n, ü becomes u. This ensures compatibility across all browsers and systems while preserving readability. Most CMS platforms handle this automatically, but having a dedicated slug generator gives you full control.

URL slugs are one component of your overall URL structure. A well-planned URL hierarchy uses directories to indicate content categories (e.g., /blog/, /products/, /docs/) with descriptive slugs for individual pages. This creates a logical, crawlable structure that benefits both users and search engines.

Avoid deeply nested URLs with many directory levels. Keep the full URL path as short as possible while maintaining clarity. When restructuring URLs, always implement 301 redirects from old URLs to new ones to preserve link equity and prevent broken links.