What should be the length of page url from seo perspective?
-
Is there any limit to page urls length?
-
Hi,
I think this is a good question, and one of those where you should think on it from a user perspective.
First of all, you want to have a URL that is:
A) Easy to remember for the user
B) Does the best possible effort of describing the content on the page, so that it's obvious to the user what the page is about, even before clicking the URL.
In this post, Rand says that the URL should be < 90 characters:
http://moz.com/blog/visual-guide-to-keyword-targeting-onpage-optimization
Moreover, on this page you can see that there's a limit on URL characters in Internet Explorer(4-8, but there's also some limits in newer versions) which is 2083 characters:
There's also some additional good information on that page, for your reading. For more information on the length from a technical standpoint, I'd recommend the top answer in this thread:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/417142/what-is-the-maximum-length-of-a-url-in-different-browsers
This blog post indicates that most of Google's urls are around 70-90 characters, which may be a good indication:
http://www.johnfdoherty.com/lessons-from-google-about-url-lengths/
As a final note, SERPs seems to only show around 50 characters in the URL fields, so this may also be something to keep in mind, however, they do tend to highlight the keywords and shorten the rest of the URL (for example www.google.com/.../insidesearch/howsearchworks/...).
To summarize, I do not think there's a "definite best practice" defined in terms of URL length, as a general rule of thumb in these scenarios; as long as it makes sense to the user, it should make sense to the search engines too. I hope I was able to help somewhat.
-
Hello there,
I don't think there is an actual limit to the length of the URL's.
I notice that articles and blogs have usually longer URL's than other pages (products).
What you don't want to do is stuffing your URL's with too many keywords.
Also a very long URL would confuse your visitors rather than helping them.
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
-
Image scale Error On page seo
I Have an Image Scale Error in Gtmetrix how to solve it which is the best way to solve it I tried many ways but it's not working.
On-Page Optimization | | AlexSmithh0 -
More Singular KW Targeted Landing Pages vs. Less Multiple KW Targeted Landing Pages
So my question is... I have a adopted a site which currently ranks quite well for some industry competitive keywords with a number of poor quality landing pages which specifically target a singular keyword. I am wondering if its worth merging some of these pages together into one authoritative, better quality landing page targeting multiple keywords (as the intent for some of these keywords are largely the same). What i don't want to do is jeopardise the existing rankings in doing so. The alternative option would just be to improve the content on the existing landing pages without merging. What are peoples thoughts on this? Are there any positive case studies out there where merging has had a positive effect? Any help would be great. Regards,
On-Page Optimization | | NickG-1231 -
Strange URL resulting a page
Hi, my friend has asked me to take a look at his site. I only know the basics of SEO so I'm learning along the way. He has some duplicate title errors showing in Moz, resulting to this page: https://www.domainname.com/about/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers This URL shows the 'About' page. I have tonnes of pages like this showing with really long URLs that result an actual page. Has anyone seen something like this before? I don't have a clue how this is showing the about page Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks James
On-Page Optimization | | Craze_Media0 -
Do subfolders for grouping common services pages help SEO?
Hello, fellow MOZers. Here is the question: Is there any benefits/disadvantages of having pages, grouped by common type of service, to be put into subfolder with keyphrase-friendly phrase? Example: We have website https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com/ and several services under "SEO" niche, such as: SEO (page name seo-houston.php) Social Media Marketing (page name social-media-marketing-houston.php) Email Marketing (page name email-marketing-houston.php) So, is it better to have these pages in root directory like this: https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com**/seo-houston.php** https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com**/houston-social-media-marketing.php** https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com**/email-marketing-houston.php** OR is it better to group them in subfolder "houston-seo-services" for "extra" keyword and convenience reasons like this: https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com/houston-seo-services/seo-houston.php https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com/houston-seo-services/social-media-marketing-houston.php https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com/houston-seo-services/email-marketing-houston.php Any thoughts will be appreciated. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | seomozinator0 -
URL / Meta info for Author bio pages
When you create a biography page for authors that point back to their G+ account, do you include any other signals in the URL other than the authors name? For example, would you use www.domain.com/sam-spade or www.domain.com/sam-spade-biography, etc? Similar question for the meta description. Do you add any signals there? Or, is rel=author strong enough. Best,
On-Page Optimization | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
Are pages with lots of pictures with outbound links bad for seo?
"Inspiration" blog posts are a good example. The one below has 80 pictures as part of a logo inspiration page. But each picture has an outbound url. Bad or doesn't matter? http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/80-creative-and-well-designed-logos/
On-Page Optimization | | seo_f20120 -
SEO for Japan
Google and Yahoo are the two major search engines in Japan. You can search using Western characters, and you often see English language results with Japanese (Chinese) characters next to them. As I don't speak Japanese, how do I approach SEO for my Japanese-language site? would appreciate any experiences and educational sources on the topic.
On-Page Optimization | | KnutDSvendsen0 -
Url question for seo
Would it be beneficial to use url that is a match for my keyword to help with seo, then have my currently url forward to that one so I don't have to change any marketing materials? I was one of the feedback that I got when doing the on page keyword optimization tool on seo moz. Thanks J
On-Page Optimization | | fertilityhealth0