diff --git a/pathauto.inc b/pathauto.inc
index 63b9244..ce007e8 100644
--- a/pathauto.inc
+++ b/pathauto.inc
@@ -190,7 +190,7 @@ function pathauto_cleanstring($string, array $options = array()) {
   }
 
   // Remove all HTML tags from the string.
-  $output = strip_tags(decode_entities($string));
+  $output = decode_entities(strip_tags($string));
 
   // Optionally transliterate (by running through the Transliteration module)
   if ($cache['transliterate']) {