URL Slug Generator in your browser, no signup

A slug is the human-readable part of a URL - the "how-to-convert-pdf-to-word" in a blog address. Getting it right involves a few rules that are easy to state and easy to forget. Use hyphens, not underscores: Google treats a hyphen as a word separator and an underscore as a joiner, so "pdf_to_word" reads as one token rather than three. Lowercase everything, because URLs are case-sensitive on most servers and mixed casing creates duplicate URLs for the same page. Strip accents and punctuation, since anything outside the safe character set gets percent-encoded into an unreadable mess. Keep it short and drop filler words - "the", "a", "and" add length without adding meaning. The most important rule is not about formatting at all: once a URL is published and indexed, changing it breaks every existing link unless you add a redirect. Decide the slug before publishing. This runs in your browser.

SEO and webmaster checks are only useful if they match what Googlebot or a browser would see. Guessing from the HTML source alone is how people ship broken tags.

URL Slug Generator is a good fit when creating the URL for a new blog post or article.

In plain English

URL Slug Generator is built around a few practical wins, not a long feature list:

• Applies the conventions consistently - lowercase, hyphens, no accents, no punctuation.
• Handles accented characters properly rather than percent-encoding them into noise.
• Produces URLs that read clearly in search results and when shared.
• Runs in your browser with no account.
• Instant, so it fits into a publishing workflow without friction.

How to run it

1. Paste your title or text. An article headline, product name or page title - whatever the URL should describe.
2. Read the generated slug. Lowercased, accents stripped, punctuation removed and spaces converted to hyphens.
3. Trim it down. Remove filler words. Three to five meaningful words is usually the sweet spot.
4. Set it before publishing. Changing a slug after indexing breaks existing links unless you add a redirect.

Real situations

• Creating the URL for a new blog post or article.
• Generating product page URLs from product names.
• Standardising slugs across a site being migrated.
• Converting non-English titles into URL-safe form.
• Producing consistent file and asset names.

Small habits that help

• Always hyphens, never underscores. Search engines split on hyphens and join on underscores, which changes how the words are read.
• Keep it to three to five meaningful words. Long slugs get truncated in search results and are awkward to share.
• Drop stop words - the, a, and, of - unless removing them makes the slug ambiguous.
• Never change a published slug without a 301 redirect from the old URL. That is how sites lose accumulated rankings.
• Avoid dates and numbers unless they are genuinely permanent. "2024-guide" ages badly and invites an unnecessary URL change.

Skip these

• Using underscores, which search engines treat as joining words rather than separating them.
• Leaving uppercase letters, which creates case-sensitive duplicate URLs on most servers.
• Changing a live slug without a redirect, breaking every existing link and losing the page's ranking history.
• Stuffing keywords into a long slug, which looks spammy and gets truncated anyway.
• Leaving accented or special characters in, which get percent-encoded into an unreadable URL.

Does anything leave your device?

URL Slug Generator runs in your browser. The file or text you paste stays on your device. There is no account, and nothing is stored on a ToolBox server for this job.

Related tools worth opening next

If this is one step in a longer job, these usually come after it:

• Canonical URL Generator - Generate canonical link tags and normalize URLs
• Case Converter - Convert text between cases
• Free UTM Link Builder - Build clean UTM-tagged campaign URLs for any analytics platform - with live preview and one-click copy

FAQ

What makes a good URL slug for SEO?

Short, descriptive, lowercase, hyphen-separated, and ideally containing the target keyword - avoiding unnecessary filler words keeps it clean and readable both for users and search engines.

What happens to special characters and spaces?

Spaces are typically converted to hyphens, and special characters/punctuation are stripped or transliterated, since URLs need to stick to a limited safe character set.

Does it handle non-English characters and accents?

Yes - accented characters are transliterated to their closest plain ASCII equivalent, so "é" becomes "e". Left in place they would be percent-encoded into an unreadable string in the address bar.

Should I use hyphens or underscores?

Hyphens, always. Google treats a hyphen as a word separator and an underscore as a joiner, so "pdf-to-word" reads as three words while "pdf_to_word" reads as one. This is a documented difference, not a style preference.

How long should a URL slug be?

Three to five meaningful words. Long slugs are truncated in search results, awkward to share and no more effective - dropping filler words like "the" and "and" usually gets you there.

Can I change a slug after publishing?

You can, but only with a 301 redirect from the old URL. Without one, every existing link breaks and the page loses its accumulated ranking signals. This is why the slug is worth deciding before you publish.

Open the URL Slug Generator when you are ready. It is free, and you do not need an account.