The following is the function that converts string into SEO friendly URL slug
function slugify($text) { // replace non letter or digits by - $text = preg_replace('~[^\\pL\d]+~u', '-', $text); // trim $text = trim($text, '-'); // transliterate $text = iconv('utf-8', 'us-ascii//TRANSLIT', $text); // lowercase $text = strtolower($text); // remove unwanted characters $text = preg_replace('~[^-\w]+~', '', $text); if (empty($text)) { return 'n-a'; } return $text; }