Long URL Warning
-
Dear experts,
I have 1490 warnings for having long URLs
These URLs are generates automatically by Prestashop from the product title and they are very readable.
Can you please direct me what's the impact of these long URLs on my SEO and how can I reduce them if they are automatically generated?
Regards,
-
Long URL's aren't always a bad thing. It's generally bad only because users are turned off by long URL's.
-
Just another update:
When I checked Amazon, I found that their URL is really big. Containing a generated keyboards plus other dynamic codes.
This made me more confused If I should invest in fixing my whole website URLs or just keep them as they are and ignore SEOMOZ warning !
-
Not the Titles but the URL needs to describe the page in as few words as possible.
instead of /5414668-women-s-invicta-swiss-16-diamonds-two-tone-mother-of-pearl-dial.html aim for something like** **/invicta-mother-of-pearl-dial.html
It also depends on what keywords you are aiming for this page. If it's "Woman's Invicta Swiss Watch" then you need to use that.
-
Then how should I make the titles shorter then??
-
Maybe on the shorter keywords where you have 1 or 2 in the URL but when you try and use invictamotherofpearldial as an extension, it can get very ambiguous. Google will probably figure it out if the Title tag is says "invicta mother of pearl dial" but I believe it is very unprofessional to have a URL that people battle to read.
If I saw **/**invictamotherofpearldial.html, I wouldn't know what that is but if the URL had **/**invicta-mother-of-pearl-dial.html, I can make a much better assumption of what the page is about. Google will see this as a usability issue.
-
I do not believe what you have posted to be correct. Easy checked too. Google is very able to match your first example and in fact does.
-
Well, your suggestion will cost me some good $$
But assuming that I'm going to do this task, what's the benefits out of it and what's the drawbacks of not doing this???
-
@Mat
Remember the dashes or underscores are used to determine individual words by search engines. An example would be:
www.website.com/ceramictilesealant (X)
vs
www.website.com/ceramic-tile-sealant (Y)
Domain X wouldn't nessecarily gain any authority for "Ceramic Tile Sealant" in the URL but domain Y would definitely.
-
I'd definitely have a look at the rules being used to create those URLs. All those dashes don't look great.
Likewise I don't accept "no easy" as an excuse http://www.kanaryluxurywatches.com/en/5414668-invictamotherofpearldial.html would definitely look more attractive to click on than http://www.kanaryluxurywatches.com/en/ladies-invicta/5414668-women-s-invicta-swiss-16-diamonds-two-tone-mother-of-pearl-dial.html
Crafting URLs for maximum impact isn't easy. That is one of the reasons that it can be worth doing.
-
Hello Mat.
Yes I see these warnings in here not in Google.
This is an example of one of my prestashop products:
It's not easy for the data entry people to change the SEO titles, it's dynamically created and helping us to have a unique URL.
So what do you think?
-
I'm not too familiar with Prestashop but as Mat has mentioned below, there should be an option to edit the URL of each page, and there is probably modules that have been created in order to do this on a larger scale.
If you follow the article I linked to in my first reply, you will see that you have to log into your admin panel -> go to preferences -> SEO & URL's
Then you can set your rewritten URL there. Try to make it shorter and SEO friendly.
-
Thank you Rod, I'm already applying the friendly URL in prestashop. Actually that's why my URLs are long. They are not dynamically changing, please check in here: http://www.kanaryluxurywatches.com/en/ladies-invicta/5414668-women-s-invicta-swiss-16-diamonds-two-tone-mother-of-pearl-dial.html So, there is no redirection and Google is indexing them properly. So what do you think?
-
Hi Mohamed,
Where do you have these warnings? Here in the campaign reports on SEOmoz?
Those warnings are meant to highlight potential issues. It doesn't mean that you necessarily have a proper problem. Check them and apply common sense (which is sounds like you have).
Long URLs can indicate that you have dynamic URLs being indexed. That can cause a problem. However, from what you have said it sounds like you have long product names being turned in to page names. This is less problematic, although there are a few issues to be aware of:
-
Long URLs CAN look spammy. This might discourage people not to click on them. This is really dependent on each URL though so get other peoples input on this. How do your looks in the SERPs compared to competitors?
-
They might not display in full. This might mean that you don't get the full benefit of having a nice self-explanatory URL.
-
One of the sets of quality rater guidelines that came out of google did suggest that long URLs might be a sign of a spammy site.
If you URLs are logical then I wouldn't panic overly, but do consider the above factors. I haven't used prestashop much, but from memory you can manually edit the URLs if you want. If you do that do remember to test that the old URL is redirecting properly (with a 301) though.
-
-
Google is probably referencing your dynamic URL's in Prestashop. Dynamic URL's can change at any time thus Google cannot index a page properly if the URL changes. This can also cause problems when you need to redirect pages.
Because your site is an ecommerce site, you are most likely going to have quite a few dynamic URL's.
Another downside about having these URL's is that users are less likely to click through to a dynamic URL.
as for creating shorter URL's, here is an article I found on SEO friendly URL's for Prestashop.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What do we know about the "Shops" SERP Feature?
I came across this SERP Feature in a search today on a mobile device. It does not show for the same search query on desktop. What do we know about this "Shops" SERP feature? shops-blur.jpg
SERP Trends | | seoelevated0 -
Google showing different links in SERPs
Google search results are showing my site links in both URLs, "mydomain.com" and "https://mydomain.com". However the one with https is showing a favicon, and the other one is not. So i wanna keep the https one and remove the other one. I went to GSC to submit "mydomain.com" for removal and it said that URL will be deleted in ALL of its variations.So how do i delete the "mydomain.com" links? Should i just index the ones with https again? Would that work? Someone suggested me to do 301 redirect on all pages that are being displayed twice. But i am not sure if i need to do that since i am using squarespace, and both of the links lead to the same page?
SERP Trends | | winter22330 -
Google Fetch and Render - Partial result (resources temporarily unavailable)
Over the past few weeks, my website pages have been showing as partial in the Google Search Console. There are many resources/ files (js, css, images) that are 'temporarily unreachable'. The website files haven't had any structural changes for about 2 years (it historically has always shows as 'completed' and rendered absolutely fine in the search console). I have checked and the robots.txt is fine as is the sitemap. My host hasn't been very helpful, but has confirmed there are no server issues. My website rankings have now dropped which I think is due to these resources issues and I need to clear this issue up asap - can any one here offer any assistance? It would be hugely appreciated. Thanks, Dan
SERP Trends | | dan_550 -
Getting indexed by Google scholar
Often my Google Scholar alerts result in exactly what I think they will: scholarly articles published in academic journals. However, today I got this completely non-scholarly article https://www.t-nation.com/training/the-exact-reps-that-make-you-grow and I have no idea why Google Scholar is indexing this site. I've read up on how to get indexed by Google Scholar, and this website doesn't seem to have the necessary requirements. I'm curious for anyone whose clients or industry need to get indexed by Google Scholar, what has worked for you?
SERP Trends | | newwhy2 -
URL Parameter for Limiting Results
We have a category page that lists products. We have parameters and the default value is to limit the page to display 9 products. If the user wishes, they can view 15 products or 30 products on the same page. The parameter is ?limit=9 or ?limit=15 and so on. Google is recognizing this as duplicate meta tags and meta descriptions via HTML Suggestions. I have a couple questions. 1. What should be my goal? Is my goal to have Google crawl the page with 9 items or crawl the page with all items in the category? In Search Console, the first part of setting up a URL parameter says "Does this parameter change page content seen by the user?". In my opinion, I think the answer is Yes. Then, when I select how the parameter affects page content, I assume I'd choose Narrows because it's either narrowing or expanding the number of items displayed on the page. 2. When setting up my URL Parameters in Search Console, do I want to select Every URL or just let Googlebot decide? I'm torn because when I read about Every URL, it says this setting could result in Googlebot unnecessarily crawling duplicate content on your site (it's already doing that). When reading further, I begin to second guess the Narrowing option. Now I'm at a loss on what to do. Any advice or suggestions will be helpful! Thanks.
SERP Trends | | dkeipper0 -
External URLs - ones you can't reach out
My fellow Mozzers, I have been reviewing our Google Webmaster error reports and noticed high url errors. These URLs are generated from international sites, mainly China. Upon further inspection, these look to be links to dynamic URLs that are no longer active on our site. (search pages) China is linking to old URLs that simply spew out a 'Bad Request' pages now. Problems I face is that: I can't contact these chinese sites to remove/edit the URLs. I could work with my developers to identify the urls and direct them all to the homepage, but is that good. The URLs are still present. Some of these look like pages that haven't been updated in a while, so now I have links from sites that are archived, or "dead" Have you tackled anything like this before? Thoughts are welcome Thanks
SERP Trends | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
Should URL Follow Navigation Of A Site?
Following an SEOMoz webinar the other day, where the presenter made a case of eliminating folders in URLs, as these could confuse a bot when crawling a site. I love the idea. However, there are still a lot of Best Practices and guidelines out there that will suggest there should be a logic in the URL, just as there should be in your Navigation. My question in that regard is whether or not there is any value for a bot to crawl a website URL that follows the navigation by "stuffing" the URL with folders, identical to the navigation present on the site, and even a secondary navigation present on all pages? Example: the navigation of a site goes [Domain > Folder > Sub folder > Sub-sub folder > product]. What is the benefit of using a URL such as [www.domain.com/folder/sub-folder/sub-sub-folder/product] vs [www.domain.com/product] Thank you guys for your insights! PS this is a WP site we are talking about.
SERP Trends | | Discountvc0 -
Google Merchant Center Feed Disapproved - Data Quality Good - No Warnings
I have noticed Google Merchant Center has been making many changes of over the last month. Feeds can now be optimized for certain product attributes. The dilemma currently is that I have a Google Merchant Center Data feed that shows zero warnings and that the data quality is good. Unfortunately, the entire feed has been disapproved. Across many other websites that I noticed the same issues, I have been able to fix all warnings and the feeds are taken perfectly. This one sites issues are eluding me. Anybody have any suggestions or experience dealing with this problem? Possible issues I have looked into but could be affecting feed. Merchant Center Guidelines have been reviewed multiple, multiple times and here is what I have found. 1. Website has limited duplicate content taken from distributors product listings (I have fought a unending battle with site owner to make all product content original) 2. Refurbished Products Issue: The sites feed has listed all products as "new". I found some of the product content in the site had "refurbished" listed. The guidelines state that products must be listed & marked as refurbished in the feed. To overcome this issue I disabled all refurbished products and resubmitted the feed. This did produce a good approved data feed.
SERP Trends | | SEMCLIX0