Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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
-
What Should be the URL of third party blog for my website
Hi All, What Should be the URL of third party blog for my website. Lets say if i have a website xyz.com (which provide pest control services in New York City) and I want to create third party blogs on platforms like blogspot, weebly etc so should i create the blog url as xyz.blogspot.com or i can use a keyword in the blog URL such as pestcontrolnyc.blogspot.com? Which URL would be the best as per Google's guidelines. Note: I have already have a blog within the domain as xyz.com/blog/ and i do weekly posting on this blog. But at the same time i want to create 1-2 third party blogs to get some backlinks from other sources.
Link Building | | Mr.Suren0 -
Redirect from a previous url
Hi - newbie question I have a customer who's had previous versions of his website. Previously it was known as "princess-interiors.co.uk" (been around for a few years) and is now "princess-design.co.uk" (been around also for a few years). New site is WordPress - what would be the best way to redirect (I have access to the previous version of the site which is still hosted). I expect it's to use 301, but how would I do that (step by step), and does www. versus non-www need addressing (and how). Really concerned, as this site has gone to zero organic visits!! Hoping somebody can help. Thanks
Link Building | | Gokart0 -
Listly and SEO
We use listly quite a lot. A few of our lists get embedded in other sites. A lot of the embedded lists have links back to us. Is there any seo benefit on this, or will just one of the sites count ? Isn't this just duplicate content ? Wondering what your thoughts are.
Link Building | | MarkQJones0 -
Could google recognize urls in data-attributes?
Hi, could google's crawler recognize the following example as a link and will be crawl the url? any experience? ty for your help
Link Building | | censeo0 -
Warrior Forum, Is it good for seo?
The Warrior Forum just changed there membership from free to paid. They have do follow attributes but I was wondering what peoples take is on joining them for both learning and seo purposes?
Link Building | | bronxpad0 -
Does the complete url count as backlink?
Hi there, does the http://mysite.com count as a backlink if posted on a site? I post a press releae and the site only allows me to put urls like this. they get something or must be in anchor the url? Thanks
Link Building | | nyanainc0 -
Shortened url vs. anchor text
Are there any benefits to linking a shortened url vs. an anchor text when I am link building?Would linking via shortened link such as tinyurl cause problems with SERPS? Also, would it be more beneficial to short link to the homepage or landing page?
Link Building | | Modbargains0 -
Are backlinks from sites like diigo useful for SEO?
I read an SEO article that recommended getting backlinks from social bookmarking sites like diggo.com. Does anyone have any thoughts on the usefulness of these types of links?
Link Building | | casper4340