Text to Slug Converter

Your URLs are doing more work than you think. A messy URL like example.com/post?id=12847 tells Google nothing. A clean URL like example.com/wordpress-speed-optimization tells both search engines and humans exactly what to expect.

That’s what slugs do. And getting them right is one of the easiest SEO wins you’ll ever get.

What Is a URL Slug?

A slug is the part of a URL that identifies a specific page in a readable format. In https://gauravtiwari.org/wordpress-caching-guide, the slug is wordpress-caching-guide.

The term comes from print journalism. Editors used “slugs” as short identifiers for stories in production. The web borrowed the concept for URLs.

Most CMS platforms generate slugs automatically from your post title. WordPress takes “How to Speed Up Your WordPress Site” and creates how-to-speed-up-your-wordpress-site. Simple enough.

But automatic doesn’t mean optimal.

Why Slugs Matter for SEO

Google uses URLs as a ranking signal. Not a massive one, but it counts. More importantly, slugs affect three things that definitely impact your traffic:

Click-through rates in search results. People scan URLs before clicking. A URL with best-wordpress-hosting-2025 tells them exactly what they’re getting. A URL with p=4827 tells them nothing.

Social sharing. When someone shares your link on Twitter or Slack, the URL is visible. Clean slugs look professional. Messy ones look spammy.

Keyword targeting. Including your target keyword in the slug reinforces what the page is about. It’s not magic, but it helps.

I’ve seen pages jump 3-5 positions just from fixing URLs. Not always, but often enough that I optimize slugs on every new site.

What Makes a Good Slug

Keep it short. Aim for 3-5 words. Google truncates long URLs in search results anyway, and shorter URLs get shared more often.

Use hyphens between words. Not underscores. Google treats hyphens as word separators. wordpress-speed reads as two words. wordpress_speed might read as one.

Include your target keyword. If you’re writing about WordPress caching plugins, your slug should probably include “wordpress-caching” or “caching-plugins.”

Skip the filler words. Articles (a, an, the) and connectors (and, or, but, for) rarely add value in slugs. “The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Caching” becomes wordpress-caching-guide, not the-ultimate-guide-to-wordpress-caching.

Use lowercase only. URLs are case-sensitive on most servers. WordPress-Guide and wordpress-guide are technically different URLs. Stick to lowercase to avoid duplicate content issues.

No special characters. Spaces become %20, apostrophes become %27, and your URL turns into garbage. Strip everything except letters, numbers, and hyphens.

Common Slug Mistakes

Letting WordPress auto-generate without editing. The default slug for “10 Best WordPress Plugins You Need in 2025!” becomes 10-best-wordpress-plugins-you-need-in-2025. That’s fine, but best-wordpress-plugins-2025 is cleaner.

Including dates that will become stale. If your URL is best-plugins-january-2025 and you update the post in June, your URL now looks outdated even if the content isn’t.

Using generic slugs. my-first-post or untitled-1 tells Google nothing. Every slug is a small opportunity. Don’t waste it.

Changing slugs on existing posts. Once a URL is indexed and has backlinks, changing it hurts you. You lose link equity even with proper redirects. Get slugs right before publishing.

Slug Converter Tool

Here’s a quick tool to convert any text into a URL-friendly slug. Type or paste your title and get a clean slug instantly.

How the Slug Converter Works

The JavaScript does a few things in sequence:

1. Converts everything to lowercase
2. Strips special characters and symbols
3. Collapses multiple spaces into one
4. Replaces spaces with hyphens
5. Removes duplicate hyphens
6. Trims leading and trailing hyphens

That last step matters. Without it, a title starting with a special character produces a slug that starts with a hyphen. Looks unprofessional.

The copy button uses the Clipboard API, which works in all modern browsers. Falls back gracefully if clipboard access is blocked.

Slug Best Practices by Content Type

Different content needs different slug strategies.

Blog posts: Include your primary keyword, skip filler words, keep it under 60 characters. Example: wordpress-speed-optimization instead of how-to-optimize-your-wordpress-site-for-better-speed.

Product pages: Include product name and category if it fits. Example: blue-widget-pro or running-shoes-nike-air-max.

Category pages: Keep it simple. The category name, maybe one modifier. Example: wordpress-tutorials not all-our-wordpress-tutorials-and-guides.

Landing pages: Match the target keyword exactly if possible. If you’re targeting “wordpress hosting comparison,” your slug should be wordpress-hosting-comparison.

Handling Slug Changes (When You Have To)

Sometimes you inherit a site with terrible URLs. Or you need to rebrand. Here’s how to handle it without destroying your rankings.

Set up 301 redirects for every changed URL. This tells search engines the content moved permanently and passes most link equity to the new URL.

In WordPress, I use Redirection or Rank Math’s redirect manager. Simple setup: old URL points to new URL, 301 status.

Submit updated URLs in Google Search Console. Request indexing for the new URLs. The old ones will eventually drop off.

Monitor your rankings for a few weeks. Some fluctuation is normal. If rankings tank and don’t recover within 4-6 weeks, something went wrong with the redirects.

Don’t change slugs on high-performing pages unless absolutely necessary. The risk rarely outweighs the benefit.

WordPress Slug Settings

WordPress handles slug generation in Permalinks settings. Go to Settings > Permalinks and choose your structure.

I recommend “Post name” for most sites. It gives you URLs like example.com/your-slug-here. Clean, readable, keyword-friendly.

Avoid date-based structures unless you’re running a news site. example.com/2025/01/your-post wastes URL space with information users don’t care about.

When editing a post, click “Edit” next to the permalink to customize the slug. WordPress shows a preview so you can see exactly what the final URL will look like.

Quick Slug Checklist

Before publishing any new content:

• Is the slug 3-5 words? Shorter is usually better.
• Does it include your target keyword? It should.
• Did you remove filler words? “The,” “a,” “and,” “to” rarely help.
• Are you using hyphens? Not underscores or spaces.
• Is everything lowercase? Capitals cause problems.
• Does it describe the content? Someone should know what the page is about from the URL alone.

Slugs aren’t complicated. Get them right once, and they work for you forever. Get them wrong, and you’re stuck with bad URLs or dealing with redirect headaches.

Spend the extra 30 seconds to optimize every slug. It adds up.