My product title is very long and so is its URL; how do I shorten the slug without cutting a word in half?
Type a number into 'Maximum length' in the slug generator and the slug is cut at the last separator before that number, so no word is split, and a note tells you it was cut. For an Arabic slug, also watch the encoded length, because every Arabic letter becomes six characters when the link is copied in its encoded form.
How long a full-title slug gets
Product titles in Arabic stores tend to run long because they carry type, origin, weight and selling points all at once. Take this honey title:
عسل سدر جبلي أصلي من جبال اليمن بالشمع الطبيعي 1 كيلو
With no length limit the slug becomes:
عسل-سدر-جبلي-أصلي-من-جبال-اليمن-بالشمع-الطبيعي-1-كيلو
That is 53 characters as you see it, but its encoded form, the one that actually travels over the network and shows up when you copy it into some apps, is 263 characters. That second number is what makes a long Arabic slug a nuisance in a message or a spreadsheet.
Cutting at a limit
Type 30 into 'Maximum length':
عسل-سدر-جبلي-أصلي-من-جبال
The length is now 25 characters and the encoded length 125. Why 25 and not 30? Because the thirtieth character falls inside the word اليمن, so the tool steps back to the last hyphen before it and cuts there, and you never get a slug ending in half a word. It only cuts mid-word when there is no separator before the limit at all, as with a title that is one long word.
Blind cut or chosen words?
Notice the cut kept من, a filler word meaning 'from', and dropped اليمن, which matters far more. Cutting keeps the first words and has no idea which ones count. Two ways to do better:
- Turn on stop-word removal with the same limit: من goes first, then the cut happens, giving عسل-سدر-جبلي-أصلي-جبال-اليمن at 28 characters.
- Or type a short version of the title you choose yourself into the input, and keep the full title for the product page itself.
The result field is editable too, so if the cut is right except for one word, fix it directly; copy takes whatever is in the field.
The steps
- Open the URL slug generator, paste the full title, and leave the mode on 'Arabic Unicode'.
- Look at 'Slug length' and 'Encoded length' under the result to see the size of the problem.
- Type a number into 'Maximum length' and try different values until the important words survive.
- Turn on stop-word removal if the title contains words like من and في.
- Check the result, edit it by hand if needed, then copy it into the URL field of your store dashboard.
What length is right?
There is no official number we can hand you, and platforms differ in their limits. The practical test: a slug that describes the product in a few words and reads easily when shared. If your platform enforces a URL limit, check it in its settings and type that into the field. To see how the URL might look with the title in search results, try it in the Search snippet preview.
Common questions
Is the limit counted in characters or in encoded length?
In characters as you see them in the slug. The encoded length is shown for information only.
Will the slug change if I change the limit later?
Yes, and a published URL should not change without a 301 redirect from the old address to the new one.
Can I cut a whole list of titles at once?
Yes. Turn on batch mode, put one title per line, and the limit applies to every line.