Are long URLs bad for SEO?
-
Hi,
I would like to know how bad is the long URLs that I have on my website.
At the moment we have 543 long urls and I was wondering how big is the impact in my SEO.
Thank you
-
After 512 pixels, Google will truncate your URL in search results pages. A good rule of thumb is to keep your URLs as short as you can, without losing their general meaning.
-
thanks you for information
-
I am about 100% sure that had to with applying your keyword into the URL. I still haven't really been able to find any concrete information on how having to long of a keyword effects rankings. I currently have a customer who decided to put all these dimensions into his product URL's making them way to long. I just want to know if it's worth the work to go in and shorten all of those and remove the dimensions.
-
Good question, I have about 300 pages with long URL, but I wonder, what is better here, to have long URLs or a lot of 301 redirects? Which option will make less harm?
Thanks
-
Like most things in SEO, it depends. There was an industry case study that Brian Dean often references, where they determined that shorter URLs tended to rank higher on Google. We have a personal example of this-
When trying to get our https://seo-kansas-city.com/services/google-adwords-campaigns/ to rank for the local term "PPC Kansas City", we decided to shorten the URL and include the keyword in it, with a proper 301 redirection in place from the old to the new URL, we changed it to https://seo-kansas-city.com/services/ppc/, which shortened the URL by about 25 characters.
Granted the keyword now being in the URL string helped us as well, but doing this one change took our Google ranking from the bottom of page 2 on Google to the middle of page 1 on Google, and we still rank on page 1 for "PPC Kansas City".
In summary, I am a believer in shorter, keyword-focused URLs and definitely recommend trying to shorten some if you can!
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
-
How do i determine if an SEO person i hired is good and should continue on
I know SEO is important and i am hiring an SEO person, as well as company. however, they both seem to contradict each other and so im lost as to know who is good and bad. what should i look for in their work report, and what questions should i ask. Background: i have tried to read alot (100+ articles) on the new panda and penguin so at least i know what people are talking about without being clueless. So my site got hit recently with the updates and got penalised, and i think that is predominantly because of the backlink profiles, before being built too much around keywords. so my understanding is that backlinking now should be natural, diverse (many alt tags instead of a few), concentrate on branding and less on keywords. The person: she believes in branding, and acknowledge the problem with my previous backlink profile. so now she said the backlink ratio should be around 40-50% based on the brand. so she has been doing alot of backlinks wtih alt tags for my website url, name, as well as my name. She said once that ratio is close to that target of 40-50% i should see a jump in ranking, which woudl be in around a month of work. but here is my concern 1 - the other company said she is spamming, which kinda scarred me already 2 - while in principle, what she has said is backed up by my reading materials, it seems she only concentrate on three alt texts so far, my url, my business name, and my name. i thought they need to be diversified 3 - the links seem to come from alot of places. she said it does not need to be high quality now as we just need to get that ratio/profile correct, and then we can concentrate on the high quality links later. she is doing around 40 links per day. which apparently take 8 hours per day. 4 - i guess i worry that that if all these new links suddenly become spams later, does that mean i woudl need to either build more links to offset the more spam links, or have to spend more time removing bad links Please advise. is she performing spamming. how do i check her links/works. is there a tool. is it wise to build more links, or is it better to identify previous bad links and remove them? Thank you for your help.
Link Building | | btrinh0 -
Forum signature links and SEO
Regarding this article on forum signature links, is this good advice? http://searchtempo.com/forum-signature-links-and-seo/ Doesn't Google suggest a nofollow on these types of forum links? On a related matter, is it a good practice to add a Google Plus link in forum signatures? Best,
Link Building | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
Is my SEO Strategy is good to rank ?
I just planned my SEO Strategy for low competition keywords 1. Submit articles to top 30+ web 2.0 sites 2. Submit bookmark to top 50 sites 3. Submit Article directories to top 10 sites 4. Link them all with Wiki and blog comments Kindly let me know your suggestions
Link Building | | chandubaba0 -
SEO Package: Good Value?
I'm having a real hard time trying to dig through all the BS and find a reputable SEO company that delivers quality and value. Anyway, here's a package that I'm considering from a company called eBrandz. It seems a bit overpriced to me, but I don't have a lot of experience with reputable SEO companies, so I'm hoping someone can weigh in - on both the package itself for the price, and the company (if you have any information about them). $1500/month 8 Guest Posts (With 80 Bookmarks) 8 Articles with Syndication (With 80 Bookmarks) 1 Press Release (With Bookmarking) 75 "Curated Business Directory Submissions" Social Bookmarking for 5 Urls (Each Url to 20 Sites) 1 (every other month) Video Creation (45 to 90 seconds) With Submission and Bookmarking.
Link Building | | JABacchetta0 -
Value of IMG links for SEO
Hello, I'm looking for some new ways to build links (IE, letitimate not spam), and I know sites featuring a site that I created would be an interesting way to do so. My question is this, the StudioPress Showcase pages http://www.studiopress.com/showcase/baltimore-print-studios link back to your site with an image, with some "Almost URL Alt text". How valuable would this link be, given that the DA is 97 and the PA is in the upper 40s Thanks Zach
Link Building | | Zachary_Russell0 -
Blogs For SEO
My Competitor has a ton of different wordpress, blogger blogs. On the side bar they have link leading back to their site, how can they do this without any issues from google? Are they hiding their Ip's? Thanks!
Link Building | | TP_Marketing0 -
Exact Domain Match URL
Hello I have a few competitors ranking VERY well for exact keyword match URL. They have a single hosted page, when a customer clicks to buy inventory ir re-directs to there main url. Will google eventually catch on to this? Excellent position, very little backlink/seo work. Is this something that I should also look into for my own site? Thank you!
Link Building | | TP_Marketing0 -
Can anyone recommend a great seo company?
We are considering contracting with an SEO company for website analysis, optimization and organic link-building. If you've had any recommendations, please send them our way. Thank you!
Link Building | | balboafinance0