Free URL Slug Generator
Turn a page title into a clean URL slug — lowercase, hyphen-separated, accents and symbols stripped.
Where the word "slug" actually comes from
"Slug" as a term predates the web entirely — it's borrowed from print newspaper publishing, where editors gave every story in progress a short, internal working name to track and file it before a final headline was set. Web publishing platforms picked up the same word for the short, URL-safe identifier attached to a page, and the underlying idea carried over unchanged: a slug is a compact, readable label for a piece of content, not the polished headline itself.
How the accent-stripping actually works
Turning "café" into "cafe" isn't a lookup table of special cases — it uses a standard Unicode normalization technique. "Unicode NFD" decomposition splits an accented character like "é" into two separate pieces: the base letter "e" plus a separate, invisible "combining accent" character layered on top of it. Once decomposed that way, a simple pattern match can strip out just the combining-accent characters and leave the plain base letters behind — which is exactly why this works correctly across a huge range of accented Latin characters without needing to hardcode every possible accented letter individually.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes a good URL slug?
Short, lowercase, hyphen-separated words that describe the page: /free-slug-generator/ beats /page?id=8231. Keep the meaningful keywords, drop filler words if the slug gets long.
Hyphens or underscores?
Hyphens. Google treats hyphens as word separators but joins words around underscores — "slug_generator" reads as one token. Underscores remain common in filenames and code, which is why the option exists.
Where does the term "URL slug" come from?
It's borrowed from print newspaper publishing, where editors gave in-progress stories a short internal working name before a final headline was set. Web platforms reused the same word for a page's compact, URL-safe identifier.
What happens to accented characters?
They're transliterated to their base letters: café → cafe, über → uber, naïve → naive. This keeps slugs ASCII-safe for every browser, server, and sharing context.
Do slugs affect SEO?
Modestly — a readable slug with the page's keyword helps users and search engines understand the link before clicking, and it looks trustworthy in search results and social shares.