Text to Slug Converter

What is a URL slug?

A URL slug is the readable part of a page address that identifies a resource. In https://example.com/blog/clean-web-addresses, clean-web-addresses is the slug. This tool converts titles, headings, and labels into lowercase text that is easier to read, share, and use in links.

How slugification works

The converter performs these steps in order:

1. Normalize accented letters such as é, ñ, and ü to their basic Latin forms.
2. Convert letters to lowercase.
3. Remove punctuation and unsupported characters.
4. Trim separators from the beginning and end.
5. Replace runs of spaces, underscores, and existing hyphens with one selected separator.

For example, Crème brûlée: A Beginner's Guide! becomes creme-brulee-a-beginners-guide.

Separator choices

Separator	Example	Typical use
Hyphen	my-page-title	Public URLs and SEO
Underscore	my_page_title	Internal identifiers
Dot	my.page.title	Namespaced labels

Hyphens are the recommended choice for public URLs because search engines recognize them as word boundaries. Keep slugs short, descriptive, lowercase, and stable after publishing.

Common uses

• Blog and documentation page URLs
• Product, category, and campaign links
• CMS route segments
• File names and static asset paths
• Internal keys that need consistent word separators

Avoid dates, unnecessary stop words, and details likely to change. A slug such as best-running-shoes remains useful longer than best-running-shoes-2026-sale.

Generate a slug in code

JavaScript

const slug = title
  .normalize("NFKD")
  .replace(/[\u0300-\u036f]/g, "")
  .toLowerCase()
  .replace(/[^a-z0-9\s_-]/g, "")
  .trim()
  .replace(/[\s_-]+/g, "-");

Python

import re
import unicodedata

def slugify(title):
    text = unicodedata.normalize("NFKD", title)
    text = "".join(c for c in text if not unicodedata.combining(c))
    text = re.sub(r"[^a-z0-9\s_-]", "", text.lower()).strip()
    return re.sub(r"[\s_-]+", "-", text)

PHP

$slug = strtolower($title);
$slug = iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT//IGNORE', $slug);
$slug = preg_replace('/[^a-z0-9\s_-]/', '', $slug);
$slug = preg_replace('/[\s_-]+/', '-', trim($slug));

URL slug best practices

Use one canonical slug per page and redirect old slugs when a rename is necessary. Treat URLs as case-sensitive in application routing, even when a server normalizes them. Encode or reject unsupported characters rather than allowing malformed paths, and keep user-generated slugs unique within their collection.

Frequently asked questions

Should I use hyphens or underscores? Use hyphens for public URLs. They make word boundaries clear to both readers and search engines.

Does this tool send text to a server? No. Conversion runs in the browser, so entered text stays on the current device.

Can I use generated slugs as file names? Yes. Lowercase, separator-based names work well for files, assets, and repository paths.

What happens to non-Latin characters? Common accented Latin characters are transliterated. Unsupported scripts and punctuation are removed, so review the result before publishing.