WordPress permalink generator: see the URL before you publish.

Enter your site address, pick a permalink structure and paste post titles. You get the clean slug and the full URL each post will have, so you can settle the structure and the slugs before anything is live.

By · Updated September 25, 2026

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WordPress permalink generator

Runs in your browser. Nothing you paste is sent anywhere.

The slug is what WordPress fills into %postname%. Date structures use today’s date, and Plain shows a placeholder ID because WordPress assigns it on save. Changing the structure on a live site changes every post URL at once; WordPress redirects some old URLs itself, but not reliably enough to skip adding your own 301s.

What you can do with it

  • Preview URLs under each WordPress permalink structure
  • Plan slugs for a batch of posts before they are drafted
  • Clean up slugs WordPress generated from long titles
  • Decide on a structure before launching a new site

How it works, step by step

  1. 1

    Choose the structure once, early

    Settings → Permalinks sets it for the whole site. Pick it before launch. Changing it later changes every post URL at the same moment.

  2. 2

    Prefer post name for most sites

    Post name gives the shortest URLs and does not date the content. Date-based structures suit news sites where the date is part of the meaning.

  3. 3

    Use category in the URL only if categories are stable

    Category and name looks organised, but moving a post to another category changes its URL. Choose it only if posts rarely move.

  4. 4

    Edit the slug before publishing

    WordPress builds the slug from the full title, filler words included. Shorten it in the post's URL setting to the durable subject of the post.

  5. 5

    After publishing, leave it alone

    If you must change a live slug, WordPress usually redirects the old one, but check it, and update your internal links rather than relying on the redirect.

Once for the whole site, when you choose a structure under Settings → Permalinks, and once per post, when the slug is set. The structure is the part that is expensive to change, because it touches every URL. The slug is cheap to get right before publishing and expensive afterwards.

This tool lets you do both before anything is live: choose a structure, paste the titles you have planned, and read the full URLs they would produce.

Choosing a structure

  • Post name (/%postname%/): the shortest, and the most common choice for blogs and business sites.
  • Day and name, Month and name: the date is part of the URL. Good for news and time-bound posts; a cost for evergreen content, because a refreshed article still looks old.
  • Category and name (/%category%/%postname%/): readable and organised, but tied to a category that may change.
  • Plain (/?p=123): the unrewritten form. Readable by nobody.

Slugs

The slug rules are the same as on any site: short, lowercase, hyphenated, accents converted rather than dropped. The slug generator covers them in more depth, including why renaming a slug that already ranks is rarely worth it.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best permalink structure for SEO?

For most sites, post name: /%postname%/. It is short, readable and does not date a post. The structure is a small ranking factor at most; the bigger benefit is URLs that people can read and that do not need to change.

How does WordPress create a slug?

From the post title: lowercased, accents converted to plain letters, spaces and punctuation turned into hyphens. It keeps words like "the" and "and", which is why its default slugs are long. This tool follows the same approach and lets you drop filler words and cap the length.

Can I change the permalink structure on a live site?

You can, but every post URL changes at once. WordPress tries to redirect some old URLs to the new ones, but that is not something to rely on for a site with rankings. Plan redirects from each old URL to its new one, update internal links, and resubmit the sitemap.

What happens if I change one post's slug?

WordPress stores the old slug and redirects requests for it to the new URL, which covers most cases. Links from other sites still point at the old URL, so the redirect needs to stay in place for good.

What is the Plain structure?

The default URL form with no rewriting, like /?p=123. The number is the post ID WordPress assigns when the post is saved. It tells readers nothing about the page, and there is little reason to use it on a public site.

More free tools

Free Slug Generator: Clean URL Slugs From Any Title Clean URL slugs in bulk, with proper accent transliteration. Plus why renaming a ranking URL is the wrong call. Interactive SEO Checklist: 33 Checks, Saved as You Go 33 SEO checks to tick off, grouped from crawl and index to AI crawler access. Saved in your browser, exportable as Markdown. Free FAQ Schema Generator (JSON-LD, Article, Breadcrumb) Generate valid Article, FAQPage and BreadcrumbList JSON-LD, and the one rule that keeps it from backfiring.
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