Long URL Warning

[kanary]

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,

[Talooma]

Long URL's aren't always a bad thing. It's generally bad only because users are turned off by long URL's.

[kanary]

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 !

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Marathon-Battery-910-001935/dp/B003TG75EG/ref=sr_1_2?m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1352778932&sr=1-2

[Talooma]

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.

[kanary]

Then how should I make the titles shorter then??

[Talooma]

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.

[matbennett]

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.

[kanary]

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???

[Talooma]

@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.

[matbennett]

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.

[kanary]

Hello Mat.

Yes I see these warnings in here not in Google.

This is an example of one of my prestashop products:

http://www.kanaryluxurywatches.com/en/ladies-invicta/5414668-women-s-invicta-swiss-16-diamonds-two-tone-mother-of-pearl-dial.html

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?

[Talooma]

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.

[kanary]

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?

[matbennett]

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.

[Talooma]

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.