URL Slug Checker
Check a URL slug for length, special characters, uppercase and spaces, and suggest a clean slug.
A URL slug is the final part of a page address (for example my-new-post in /blog/my-new-post), and it tells both readers and search engines what the page is about at a glance. Paste a slug or a full URL and this checker flags common problems — length, uppercase letters, spaces, underscores, special characters and stray hyphens — then suggests a clean, search-friendly slug.
A good slug is short, lowercase and hyphen-separated. After tidying the slug, pair this with the meta title length checker and the SEO meta checker to polish the title and description too.
Several issues found. We recommend replacing it with the suggested slug below.
| Length | OK60 characters or fewer — good. |
|---|---|
| Uppercase | WarningContains uppercase letters. Make it lowercase. |
| Spaces/underscores | WarningContains spaces or underscores (_). Use hyphens (-) instead. |
| Special characters | WarningContains characters other than a-z, 0-9 and -. Remove them. |
| Leading/trailing/double hyphen | OKNo leading, trailing or double hyphens. |
| Non-ASCII characters | OKAll ASCII characters. |
Rules for a good slug
A slug that is easy for both search engines and people to read follows these guidelines.
- Use lowercase only (mixed case risks duplicate URLs)
- Separate words with hyphens (-), not underscores (_)
- Keep it under 60 characters with only the key terms
- Remove special characters and spaces outside
a-z,0-9and- - No leading/trailing hyphens or double hyphens (
--)
Examples and output
You can paste a full URL or path, not just a bare slug — the checker automatically extracts the last path segment.
My New Blog Post!→ suggestion:my-new-blog-posthttps://example.com/blog/Hello_World→ checks last segmentHello_World→ suggestshello-worldcafé-menu→ accented/non-ASCII characters get percent-encoded in URLs, so prefer plain ASCII keywords
Character-by-character conversion
Here is exactly how the checker normalizes each kind of character. The principle is to keep meaningful separators (spaces become hyphens) while stripping decorative symbols.
| Input character | Conversion | Example |
|---|---|---|
Uppercase A-Z | lowercased | SEO-Guide → seo-guide |
| Space / tab | single hyphen - | my new post → my-new-post |
Underscore _ | hyphen - | hello_world → hello-world |
Symbols ! ? . , @ # & | removed | 10% off! → 10-off |
Repeated hyphens -- | collapsed to one | a---b → a-b |
| Leading/trailing hyphen | trimmed | -sale- → sale |
Accents é ü ñ | stripped or percent-encoded (prefer ASCII transliteration) | café → caf / cafe |
A real conversion, step by step
Here is what happens when you paste a real blog title as-is. Input: 2026 SEO Trends: What's NEXT?!
- 1. Lowercase →
2026 seo trends: what's next?! - 2. Strip
: ' ? !, spaces → hyphens →2026-seo-trends-whats-next - 3. Length 28 chars, no repeated or edge hyphens → passes
- Suggested slug:
2026-seo-trends-whats-next(optionally drop filler words down to2026-seo-trends)
Common pitfall
The most common mistake is "beautifying" the slug of a post that is already ranking. Changing a slug changes the URL itself, which breaks existing inbound links, search rankings and social shares. If you must change it, always set a 301 permanent redirect from the old URL to the new one so the accumulated authority carries over. Another myth is that stuffing keywords helps — a slug like best-cheap-buy-shoes-online-sale-discount reads as spam and backfires.