How to create a slug
- Type or paste your title. The slug and a preview of the full URL appear as you type.
- Adjust the options. Remove filler words for a shorter slug, drop numbers you do not want in the address (such as a year that will date the page), or change the maximum length.
- Copy the slug into your CMS, or copy the full URL if you are planning links in advance.
What a URL slug is
The slug is the part of a web address that identifies a specific page, usually after the last slash. In example.com/blog/how-to-calculate-percentage/, the slug is how-to-calculate-percentage. A good slug tells people — and search engines — what the page is about before they click, and it stays readable when it is pasted into an email or a chat.
How the generator works
- Accents are converted to plain letters: café → cafe, Müller → muller, jalapeño → jalapeno.
- Everything is lowercased, because some servers treat /Page and /page as different addresses.
- Symbols are converted or removed. & becomes and, apostrophes are dropped so don't becomes dont rather than don-t, and all other punctuation becomes a separator.
- Separators are tidied: repeated hyphens are merged and hyphens at the start or end are removed.
- Optional clean-up: filler words are removed (the first word is always kept so the slug still makes sense), numbers can be dropped, and long slugs are trimmed at the nearest word boundary under your maximum length.
Examples
| Title | Default slug | With filler words removed |
|---|---|---|
| How to Calculate Percentage: Simple Methods | how-to-calculate-percentage-simple-methods | how-calculate-percentage-simple-methods |
| 10 Tips for a Faster Website (2026 Edition!) | 10-tips-for-a-faster-website-2026-edition | 10-tips-faster-website-2026-edition |
| Café & Bakery Menu | cafe-and-bakery-menu | cafe-bakery-menu |
Tips for better slugs
- Keep it short and descriptive. Three to six meaningful words is usually enough. The slug does not need to repeat the full title.
- Use hyphens, not underscores. Hyphens are the long-standing convention for separating words in URLs and are easier to read.
- Avoid dates unless they matter. A slug containing "2026" looks outdated next year, even if you update the article. Leave years out of evergreen content.
- Do not change published slugs casually. Changing a URL breaks existing links and bookmarks. If you must change one, set up a permanent (301) redirect from the old address.
- Check the length of titles too. The Character Counter helps keep page titles and descriptions within the space search results display.
Our full guide to creating a clean URL slug covers good and bad examples, when to change a slug, and how slugs fit into a site's URL structure. For converting text into kebab-case or snake_case for code rather than URLs, use the Case Converter.
Frequently asked questions
Should I remove words like "the" and "and" from slugs?
Only when it keeps the slug readable. how-calculate-percentage is fine, but removing filler words can sometimes change the meaning or make a slug awkward. The option is off by default for that reason.
Hyphens or underscores?
Hyphens. They are the widely used convention for separating words in URLs and are recommended in Google's own URL structure guidance.
What happens to non-English characters?
Accented Latin letters are converted to their plain equivalents. Characters from other scripts that cannot be transliterated reliably in the browser are removed, so check the result for titles written in non-Latin scripts.
Is there an ideal slug length?
There is no strict limit, but short slugs are easier to read and share. The default maximum of 75 characters trims only unusually long titles.
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