Skip to content
Instant · runs in your browser

Permalink Generator

CMS-aware slugs with live URL preview — WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Astro.

Permalinks are the permanent URLs that point to your blog posts, product pages, and landing pages. This permalink generator takes your title or phrase, strips stopwords, handles accents and special characters, respects the conventions of your CMS, and shows you a live full-URL preview so you see exactly what your visitors will click.

60

Generate the whole content, not just check it.

BlazeHive writes SEO articles end to end from a single keyword. Outline, draft, meta, schema, internal links. Free trial, no card.

Start with BlazeHive Free trial

What a permalink generator does

A permalink generator converts a human-readable title into a URL-safe slug. It lowercases the text, replaces spaces with hyphens or underscores, removes or transliterates special characters, and optionally strips common stopwords like "the," "of," "a," and "in" to keep the slug short.

The generator respects CMS-specific rules. WordPress converts to lowercase and replaces spaces with hyphens. Shopify limits slugs to 255 characters and forbids certain reserved words. Webflow allows uppercase in slugs but recommends lowercase for consistency. Astro and Next.js have no enforced conventions, but lowercase-hyphen slugs are the de facto standard. Picking the right CMS preset saves you from manually adjusting the slug after paste.

Stopword removal is optional. Removing stopwords shortens the slug and keeps the focus on the keywords that matter for SEO. A title like "How to Start a Podcast in 2026" becomes how-to-start-a-podcast-in-2026 with stopwords kept or start-podcast-2026 with stopwords removed. The shorter version is easier to read in a link and ranks just as well because Google ignores stopwords in URLs.

Accent transliteration converts accented characters to their ASCII equivalents. "Café" becomes "cafe," "naïve" becomes "naive," and "München" becomes "munchen." This matters for international content and prevents encoding issues when the URL is copied and pasted into systems that do not support UTF-8.

The live preview shows the full URL as it will appear in the browser address bar, combining your base URL with the generated slug. If you enter https://yourdomain.com/blog as the base and How to Start a Podcast in 2026 as the title, the preview shows https://yourdomain.com/blog/how-to-start-podcast-2026 in real time as you adjust settings.

How to use this permalink generator

  1. Type or paste your title or phrase into Title or phrase. This can be a blog post headline, a product name, a category label, or any text you want to turn into a URL slug.
  2. Enter your site's base URL into Your site URL. Include the protocol (https://) and any path prefix like /blog or /products. The tool uses this to show the full URL preview.
  3. Pick your CMS from CMS preset. Choose WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Astro/Next, Strapi, or Custom. The preset applies the slug rules specific to that platform.
  4. Adjust Max length if you want to cap the slug at a specific character count. The default is 60 characters, which balances readability and keyword inclusion. Shopify enforces a 255-character limit; the tool warns if you exceed it.
  5. Toggle Remove stopwords on or off. Removing stopwords produces shorter slugs. Keeping them produces more readable slugs. For most SEO use cases, removing stopwords is the better choice.
  6. The live preview updates as you type. Copy the full URL or just the slug. Paste it into your CMS slug field or page settings.

Try this title: "The Complete Guide to Headless SEO for Next.js Apps." With stopwords removed and max length set to 60, the slug becomes complete-guide-headless-seo-nextjs-apps. With stopwords kept, it becomes the-complete-guide-to-headless-seo-for-nextjs-apps, which exceeds 60 characters and gets truncated to the-complete-guide-to-headless-seo-for-nextjs-apps. The stopword-free version is shorter, cleaner, and ranks equivalently.

Why permalink structure matters for SEO

Google reads URLs as a ranking signal. A URL that includes the target keyword performs better in search results than a URL that does not, all else being equal. A Backlinko study of 1 million search results found that short URLs rank better than long URLs, with the effect strongest for URLs under 50 characters.

Three reasons permalink structure affects ranking:

Keyword relevance. When the slug includes the target keyword, Google associates the page with that keyword before it even parses the content. A page at /seo-checklist is more likely to rank for "SEO checklist" than a page at /post-12345 even if both pages have identical content. The keyword in the URL reinforces the keyword in the title and H1.

Click-through rate. Users see the URL in search results under the page title. A readable URL like /start-podcast-2026 signals exactly what the page covers and encourages clicks. A URL like /p=9823 or /blog/the-complete-and-ultimate-guide-to-absolutely-everything looks spammy or auto-generated and suppresses clicks.

Link text. When other sites link to your page and use the URL as the anchor text, a keyword-rich slug becomes keyword-rich link text. Links with keyword-matching anchor text pass more relevance than generic anchors. This effect compounds over dozens or hundreds of backlinks.

Stopwords do not count toward keyword relevance in URLs. Google strips "the," "of," "to," "in," and similar words when processing URLs. A slug with stopwords removed reads less naturally but ranks the same and takes fewer characters. The trade-off is worthwhile unless readability is critical for your audience.

CMS-specific permalink rules

WordPress. Converts to lowercase, replaces spaces with hyphens, removes most punctuation, and preserves Unicode characters by default. You can choose from several permalink structures in Settings → Permalinks, but the most SEO-friendly option is /%postname%/ or /%category%/%postname%/ if you want category hierarchies. WordPress automatically appends a number if the slug collides with an existing page, so "about" becomes "about-2" if "about" already exists.

Shopify. Limits slugs to 255 characters, lowercases everything, replaces spaces with hyphens, and strips special characters except hyphens. Shopify reserves certain words like "admin," "cart," "checkout," and "products" and will not let you use them as slugs. The permalink generator warns you if your chosen slug is reserved. Shopify also does not support category hierarchies in URLs; product slugs are always at the root level like /products/your-slug.

Webflow. Allows uppercase letters in slugs, but lowercase is recommended for consistency. Spaces become hyphens. Webflow does not enforce a character limit, but keeping slugs under 80 characters prevents issues with URL encoding and improves usability. Webflow supports folder-like hierarchies (/blog/category/post) if you set up Collections that way.

Astro and Next.js. No enforced rules. You control the slug by naming your Markdown or MDX files or by defining routes in your code. The convention is lowercase-hyphenated slugs with no file extension. Because these are static site generators, collision detection happens at build time rather than at publish time. The permalink generator follows the convention but does not enforce it.

Strapi. Uses a slug field that autogenerates from the title by default. Lowercases, replaces spaces with hyphens, removes punctuation. Strapi lets you override the slug manually before publishing. The API route for each content type includes the slug, so SEO-friendly slugs propagate to the API URLs as well.

Common mistakes

  • Leaving the slug at the auto-generated default. Most CMSes generate slugs by lowercasing the title and replacing spaces with hyphens. If your title is long, the slug will be long. If your title includes a date or question mark, the slug will include that too. Always review the auto-generated slug and shorten it before publishing.
  • Including the publication year when the content is evergreen. A slug like seo-checklist-2026 works for a year-specific roundup but ages badly for evergreen content. When 2027 arrives, the URL looks outdated even if you update the content. Omit the year unless the content is time-sensitive.
  • Using underscores instead of hyphens. Google treats hyphens as word separators and underscores as word joiners. A slug seo_checklist is read as one token, seochecklist. A slug seo-checklist is read as two tokens. Use hyphens unless your CMS enforces underscores.
  • Changing the slug after the page ranks. Once the page has backlinks and rankings, changing the slug breaks those links unless you set up a 301 redirect. If you must change the slug, configure the redirect the same day and monitor rankings for regressions.
  • Making the slug longer than the title. A slug should be a distilled version of the title, not a paraphrase. If your title is "SEO Checklist," the slug should be seo-checklist, not seo-checklist-for-on-page-optimization-and-technical-seo. Longer slugs dilute keyword focus.

Advanced tips

  • Copy the preview URL and paste it into a browser before you publish. Confirm it loads if the slug already exists, or confirm you get a 404 if it is new. This catches typos and slug collisions before your audience does.
  • For multi-language sites, generate a slug for each language and keep them consistent in structure. A post in English at /seo-checklist should have a Spanish version at /lista-seo, not /lista-de-verificacion-completa-de-optimizacion. Shorter is better across languages.
  • Use the max-length slider to match your design. If your site has a narrow mobile layout and long URLs wrap awkwardly, cap slugs at 40 characters. If you display full URLs in your footer or sidebar, keep them under 80 so they fit on one line.
  • Enable stopword removal for landing pages and product pages. Keep stopwords for how-to guides and question-based posts like "How to Do X" because the full phrase improves clarity. The SEO difference is negligible; readability is the tiebreaker.
  • For bulk permalink generation, use the slug generator instead. It accepts a list of titles and outputs a list of slugs in CSV format. The permalink generator is optimized for single-page workflows and live previews.

Once you have your permalink, the next step is usually writing the title tag and meta description for the same page. Use the SEO title generator to produce title variations that match the slug and fit within 60 characters. For the meta description, the title tag generator gives you copy-ready HTML snippets that you can paste into your CMS or static site metadata block.

Generate the whole content, not just check it.

BlazeHive writes SEO articles end to end from a single keyword. Outline, draft, meta, schema, internal links. Free trial, no card.

Start with BlazeHive Free trial

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a permalink?

A permalink is the permanent, full URL for a page or post: scheme, domain, CMS path, and slug all concatenated. Something like https://yourdomain.com/blog/how-to-start-a-podcast. It's called permanent because it's supposed to stay the same for years, so external links, bookmarks, and search rankings keep working. Change it later and every backlink pointing at the old URL breaks unless you set up a 301 redirect. Our permalink generator builds the whole URL, not just the slug. Type your title into Title or phrase, set Your site URL (including the blog or product path), pick a CMS preset (WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Astro, Strapi, or custom), and we output a clean, SEO-ready permalink that respects that CMS's rules. Hit Max length to cap at 60 if you want. The live URL preview updates as you type so you see the final link before you publish it.

What's the difference between a permalink and a slug?

A slug is just the identifier at the end of the URL: how-to-start-a-podcast. A permalink is the whole URL including scheme, domain, and CMS path: https://yourdomain.com/blog/how-to-start-a-podcast. Slugs are portable across sites; permalinks are specific to yours. Most CMSs let you edit the slug directly but build the surrounding path from a permalink structure template (WordPress calls it 'permalinks settings', Shopify hardcodes /products/, Webflow uses collection paths). If you only need the tail end of the URL for code or a CMS that handles the prefix, use our slug generator which also has a bulk mode for lists of titles. If you want to see and copy the full link before publishing (to share a draft URL or confirm the final structure), use this permalink generator. Both produce the same transformed text; the permalink just wraps it in your site's path.

How do I create a permalink?

Type your title or phrase into Title or phrase. Enter Your site URL including any blog or category path (https://yoursite.com/blog, https://shop.com/products, and so on). Pick your CMS preset so we apply the right rules: WordPress lowercases and hyphenates, Shopify caps at 255 characters and strips reserved paths, Webflow disallows underscores, Astro and Next use file-based routing so dashes are standard. Move the Max length slider to cap the slug (60 is a safe default for most blogs and 40 for product pages). Toggle Remove stopwords to strip 'the', 'of', 'a', which tightens the URL without losing meaning or keyword relevance. You get three variants (strict, readable, branded) with the live full URL preview for each so you can see the final link before you commit. Copy the one that fits and paste it into your CMS permalink field. For bulk work across many titles at once, switch to our slug generator which exports CSV for migrations and catches collisions.

How do I change or regenerate permalinks in WordPress?

In WordPress, go to Settings, then Permalinks. Pick a structure (Post name is the SEO-friendly default: /%postname%/). Click Save Changes at the bottom even if you didn't touch anything, which flushes the rewrite rules and regenerates the .htaccess file so the new structure takes effect site-wide. For a single post, open the post editor and click the URL slug under the title field to edit it directly without changing the global structure. If you're changing the global structure on a live site, set up 301 redirects from the old URLs to the new ones before you hit save, or every existing backlink and indexed page breaks and returns a 404. Use a plugin like Redirection or Yoast Premium to catch and redirect the old pattern automatically. After the switch, resubmit your sitemap in Search Console so Google re-crawls faster. Our generator builds slugs WordPress accepts cleanly, so you won't fight the auto-sanitizer when pasting titles with punctuation or mixed case.

What does a good permalink look like?

Short, readable, keyword-forward, and hyphenated. Something like yoursite.com/blog/podcast-launch-checklist beats yoursite.com/blog/2026/03/post-id-8472 every time. The ideal slug is three to five words, under 60 characters, lowercase, hyphen-separated, with the primary keyword at the start. No stopwords (the, of, a), no dates (they age the URL the day you publish), no post IDs (meaningless to users and search engines alike), no trailing punctuation, no file extensions. Google ignores plurals and stopwords when matching slugs to queries, so trimming them costs nothing and shortens the URL. Avoid characters that force URL-encoding (spaces become %20, accents become %C3%A9), which is ugly in share previews and flaky on older browsers and email clients. Our permalink generator handles accent transliteration automatically: café becomes cafe, über becomes uber, piña becomes pina. Toggle Remove stopwords on, set Max length to 60, and the output is SEO-ready. For bulk work, try the slug generator.

How long should a permalink be?

Aim for 50 to 60 characters for the slug portion. The full permalink (domain plus path plus slug) should stay under about 80 to 90 characters total. URLs longer than 100 get truncated in SERP snippets, share cards, and email previews, and they're harder to type, remember, or quote in print. Short slugs also rank slightly better because the keyword density in the URL is higher when there's less filler. Move the Max length slider on our generator between 40 and 80 depending on your CMS and content type. Blog posts can run to 60. Product pages should stay at 40 to 50 because they sit behind a /products/ prefix. Avoid cutting mid-word when you shorten. Our tool truncates at word boundaries and drops stopwords first so the result stays readable. For technical or academic titles that genuinely need more words, keep the full title but remove every stopword.

Should permalinks include dates or categories?

Dates in URLs hurt long-term SEO. A URL like /2024/03/how-to-launch-a-podcast tells every future reader the post is old, drops click-through in the SERP, and makes updates awkward (if you refresh the content in 2026, the URL still says 2024 and readers assume it's stale). Use /%postname%/ in WordPress instead. Categories in URLs are a softer tradeoff. /blog/seo/permalink-guide helps site structure and breadcrumb navigation but adds length and locks the post into one category permanently. If you later move the post to a different category, every old link breaks unless you set up a 301 redirect. The safest structure for most blogs is /blog/post-slug: one shallow prefix, clean slug, no date, no category. E-commerce is different: /products/slug is the Shopify default and it works because the products path is stable and buyers expect it. Our generator applies these rules per CMS preset automatically so you don't have to memorize each platform's quirks or conventions.

Do permalinks affect SEO?

Yes, but indirectly and less than most tools claim. Google confirmed URLs are a 'very light' ranking factor. The real impact comes from three adjacent effects. Click-through rate: clean keyword-forward URLs in the SERP and in social share cards get more clicks than /post?id=8472 because readers can scan them. Shareability: short readable URLs travel better in chat, print, podcasts, and voice assistants. Breadcrumbs: Google sometimes shows the URL path as a breadcrumb trail in search results, which reads better when the slug is descriptive. The flip side: changing permalinks on an existing page tanks rankings if you skip 301 redirects, because all the authority built on the old URL bleeds out before the new URL gets crawled and re-ranked. Pick a structure once and stick with it. Our generator produces slugs that check the keyword-forward, short, and readable boxes automatically. For a full on-page audit of any live URL, run it through our SEO checklist.

How do I handle accents, emoji, or non-English characters in permalinks?

Transliterate accents, strip emoji, and keep the slug in the Latin alphabet unless your audience reads a different script natively. Café becomes cafe. Über becomes uber. Müller becomes muller. Piña becomes pina. Our generator applies transliteration by default for common Latin-script diacritics across French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and Italian. For Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, Chinese, or Japanese content targeting native readers, keep the native script: Google handles percent-encoded Unicode URLs just fine on modern browsers, and native-script slugs rank better in native-language SERPs than transliterated ones do. Mixing scripts in one URL is where things break. A slug like /café-é-delicious-☕ encodes to /caf%C3%A9-%C3%A9-delicious-%E2%98%95 and looks like garbage in share previews, email clients, and print. Pick one script per URL, transliterate the rest, and drop emoji entirely. Our permalink generator strips emoji automatically and warns when it transliterates, so you can verify the result reads correctly before publishing.

What happens if I change a permalink on a live page?

Every external backlink, internal link, bookmark, and search-engine-indexed URL pointing at the old slug returns a 404 unless you set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. That 404 tanks rankings within days because Google drops the old URL from its index and hasn't yet consolidated authority into the new one. Always redirect before you publish the change. In WordPress, use the Redirection plugin. In Next.js or Astro, add an entry in your redirects config. In Shopify, the URL redirects admin panel handles it. Resubmit the updated sitemap in Google Search Console afterward so Google re-crawls faster. For bulk slug changes during a site migration, our slug generator exports CSV with the new slugs so you can build a find-and-replace redirect map in one pass. Test three old URLs manually before you flip the switch live.

Related free tools

All tools →
Most popular
Free Backlink Checker

Audit any domain. Authority Score, referring domains, anchor text. No signup.
AI
Slug Generator

Single or bulk slugs — paste titles, get clean slugs, export CSV.
AI
SEO Title Generator

10 titles with live Google SERP preview, char counts, and keyword-placement scoring.
AI
Title Tag Generator

3 polished `<title>` tags ready to paste into Yoast, Next.js metadata, or HTML.
Live check
Page Size Checker

See the real weight of any page — HTML doc bytes, gzip wire size, response time, and the asset requests a browser would still need.