A URL slug is the human-readable part of a web address that identifies a specific page (e.g., /blog/multilingual-slug-guide). Clean slugs help search engines understand your content, improve click-through rates, and make URLs shareable. Google recommends using hyphens as word separators and keeping slugs under 60 characters for optimal indexing.

Our tool uses Unicode Normalization (NFKD) to decompose accented Latin characters into their base form — so é → e, ñ → n, ü → u. For non-Latin scripts like Cyrillic (Russian) and Greek, we apply comprehensive transliteration maps. Special cases like German ß → ss, Icelandic þ → th, and Danish ø → o are handled with custom rules for maximum accuracy.

Chinese (Hanzi), Japanese (Kanji/Kana), and Korean (Hangul) characters are ideographic or syllabic and cannot be automatically transliterated to Latin script without a dictionary-based approach. For these languages, we recommend manually providing a romanized version (e.g., Pinyin for Chinese, Romaji for Japanese). Our tool will preserve existing Latin characters and numbers while removing unsupported glyphs. For multilingual sites, consider using translated slugs for each language version.

Google's search algorithm treats hyphens (-) as word separators, while underscores (_) are treated as word joiners. This means hello-world is read as "hello world" by Google, but hello_world is read as "helloworld" — a single token. For SEO, always use hyphens. Underscores are sometimes used in programming contexts (like Python file naming) but are not recommended for public URLs.

Removing common stop words (a, the, in, of, and, etc.) can create shorter, cleaner slugs — but it's optional. Short slugs are easier to share and remember. However, sometimes stop words add context. For example, /guide-to-seo reads naturally, while /guide-seo is slightly more cryptic. Our recommendation: remove stop words if the slug remains readable; keep them if they're essential for meaning.

While there's no strict limit, most SEO experts recommend keeping slugs between 50–60 characters. Shorter slugs are easier to read, share, and display fully in search results. Google truncates URLs in SERPs after ~60 characters. Our tool defaults to an 80-character max but allows you to set custom limits. Remember: each word in your slug is a potential keyword — but don't stuff them unnecessarily.

All special characters — including ampersands (&), at signs (@), percent signs (%), hashtags (#), and emoji — are removed entirely from the generated slug. Only letters (after transliteration), digits, and your chosen separator remain. This ensures maximum URL compatibility across all browsers, servers, and platforms. No URL encoding issues, ever.

Absolutely! The slugs generated follow universal URL standards and work seamlessly with WordPress (post slugs), Shopify (product handles), Ghost, Jekyll, Hugo, and any other CMS. Most platforms have their own slug generation, but our tool gives you greater control — especially for multilingual content. You can generate the slug here and paste it directly into your CMS's slug field.