How to create a URL slug
- Paste a page or post title — or many titles, one per line.
- Choose a separator and maximum length, and whether to remove short “stop words”.
- Copy the slugs and use them as the permalink in WordPress, Shopify or your CMS.
What is a URL slug?
The slug is the part of a web address that identifies a specific page, after the domain. In example.com/blog/compress-images-without-losing-quality, the slug is compress-images-without-losing-quality. A good slug tells people and search engines what the page is about before they click.
Best practices for SEO-friendly URLs
- Use hyphens, not underscores. Google treats hyphens as word separators, but historically treats underscores as joining words together.
- Lowercase only. URLs can be case-sensitive on many servers, so mixed case can create duplicate pages.
- Short and descriptive. Aim for 3–6 meaningful words. Remove filler words when they don’t add meaning.
- Include the main keyword, once.
- Avoid dates and numbers that will go stale — “best-phones-2026” needs a new URL next year, while “best-budget-phones” can be updated in place.
- No special characters. Spaces become
%20, and symbols like&,?and#have special meanings in URLs.
Accents and non-English titles
The generator converts accented letters to plain ASCII (“café” → “cafe”, “Ünïcödé” → “unicode”), which is safest for sharing and compatibility. Bangla, Arabic and other non-Latin scripts are allowed in URLs and Google can index them, but they appear as long percent-encoded strings when copied (for example in emails or chats). Many sites therefore use an English or transliterated slug even for non-English content.
Changing existing URLs
If a page is already published and indexed, changing its slug creates a new URL. Always set up a 301 redirect from the old address to the new one so you keep your rankings and backlinks — and update internal links.
Frequently asked questions
Should I use hyphens or underscores in URLs?
Hyphens. Google recommends hyphens to separate words in URLs.
How long should a slug be?
Short enough to read at a glance — usually 3 to 6 words, under about 60 characters.
Should I remove stop words?
Often yes, if the slug still reads naturally. “how-to-compress-images” is fine; “compress-images” is shorter. Keep words that change the meaning.
Can I use Bangla in URLs?
Yes, but it becomes a long percent-encoded string when shared. A short English or transliterated slug is usually more practical.