SLUGIFY
Convert text to URL-friendly slug (removes accents, lowercase, hyphens)
=SLUGIFY(text)Returns: string
Overview
SLUGIFY transforms any text string into a clean, URL-friendly slug by applying a series of standardization rules. It converts the text to lowercase, replaces spaces and special characters with hyphens, removes accents and diacritical marks, strips non-alphanumeric characters, and collapses multiple consecutive hyphens into a single hyphen. The result is a string that is safe to use in URLs, file names, and database identifiers.
Parameters
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
text | string | Yes | The text string to convert into a URL-friendly slug |
Examples
Basic title to slug
Converts a blog post title into a clean URL slug.
=SLUGIFY("How to Improve Your SEO Rankings")Output
how-to-improve-your-seo-rankingsHandle accented characters
Removes accents and diacritical marks while preserving the base characters.
=SLUGIFY("Cafe Resume Naive")Output
cafe-resume-naiveClean special characters
Strips special characters like colons, percent signs, exclamation marks, and parentheses.
=SLUGIFY("Product: 50% Off! (Limited Time)")Output
product-50-off-limited-timeProduct name slugification
Converts a product name with apostrophes and hyphens into a clean slug.
=SLUGIFY("Nike Air Max 90 - Men's Running Shoes")Output
nike-air-max-90-mens-running-shoesBuild a full URL with CONCATENATE
Combines SLUGIFY with CONCATENATE to generate complete page URLs from a column of titles.
=CONCATENATE("https://example.com/blog/", SLUGIFY(A2))Output
https://example.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-seo-rankingsUse Cases
Programmatic SEO Page Generation
Generate URL slugs for thousands of programmatic pages from a spreadsheet of keywords, locations, or product names. Ensure every generated URL follows a consistent, SEO-friendly format.
E-commerce Product URL Creation
Convert product catalog data into clean URL slugs for each product page, ensuring consistent URL formatting across thousands of SKUs imported from suppliers.
Content Migration Mapping
During a CMS migration, generate new URL slugs from page titles to create a redirect mapping spreadsheet that links old URLs to their new, properly formatted counterparts.
Multi-language URL Standardization
Convert page titles in languages with accented characters (French, Spanish, German, Portuguese) into ASCII-safe slugs that work universally across all web infrastructure.
Pro Tips
Use CONCATENATE to build complete URLs by combining your domain, directory path, and the slugified text. For example: =CONCATENATE("https://example.com/products/", SLUGIFY(A2)).
For programmatic SEO, create a column with SLUGIFY applied to your keyword list. This gives you URL slugs for all target pages in seconds, ready to import into your CMS.
Combine with LEN() to check slug length. Google recommends keeping URLs under 60-75 characters for optimal display in search results.
This function is indispensable for SEO professionals and web developers who need to generate URL slugs at scale. Well-structured, readable URLs are a ranking factor for search engines, and they also improve click-through rates by giving users a clear indication of what the page contains. Instead of manually crafting slugs for hundreds of pages, you can use SLUGIFY to automatically generate consistent, optimized slugs from titles, product names, or any other text.
The function handles international characters gracefully by transliterating accented characters to their ASCII equivalents. For example, "cafe" with an accent becomes "cafe", and "strasse" with a German eszett becomes "strasse". This ensures that slugs are universally compatible across all browsers, servers, and content management systems, regardless of the original language of the source text.
SLUGIFY is particularly useful during content migrations, bulk page creation for programmatic SEO, and when building dynamic URL structures from spreadsheet data. It pairs well with other text manipulation functions in Google Sheets and can be combined with CONCATENATE or string functions to build complete URL paths from your data.
Common Errors
#VALUE!Cause: The input is empty or not a text string.
Fix: Ensure you are passing a non-empty text value. If referencing a cell, make sure it contains text and is not blank.
Empty resultCause: The input text consists entirely of special characters or non-Latin script characters that cannot be transliterated.
Fix: Make sure the input text contains at least some Latin characters or numbers. For non-Latin content, consider using a transliteration step first.
Frequently Asked Questions
SLUGIFY transliterates common accented Latin characters (e.g., e with accent, u with umlaut, n with tilde) to their ASCII equivalents. For non-Latin scripts like Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic, the characters may be removed as they cannot be directly transliterated to ASCII.
Numbers are preserved in the slug. For example, "Top 10 SEO Tips for 2024" becomes "top-10-seo-tips-for-2024".
Multiple consecutive spaces, hyphens, or special characters are collapsed into a single hyphen. Leading and trailing hyphens are also removed, producing a clean slug.
Yes, the output is safe for file names as well as URLs. The slug contains only lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens, which are universally safe characters for file systems.
Yes, SLUGIFY always converts the text to lowercase. This is an SEO best practice since URLs are case-sensitive and lowercase URLs prevent duplicate content issues.
The function does not impose a maximum length. The slug will be as long as the input text requires. If you need shorter slugs, you can truncate the result using LEFT() or MID() functions in Google Sheets.
No, SLUGIFY does not remove stop words. It performs a direct text-to-slug conversion. If you want to remove stop words, you can preprocess the text using SUBSTITUTE before passing it to SLUGIFY.
Related Functions
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