URLs too long, but run an eCommerce site

[LouCommaTheCreator]

Hi,

When I started out I was pretty green to SEO, and didn't consider the usability/SEO impact of URL structure.

Flash forward, I'm 5 years deep into using the following:

mysite.com/downloads/category/premium-downloads/sub-category/ ("category" is quite literally one rung on the link - thanks, WordPress - however "sub-category" is a placeholder)

I run a digital downloads store, and I now have 100s ofinternal links beholden to this hideous category linking structure. Not to mention external links at Google Ads, etc.

I would LOVE to change this, but if I were to do so, what should I consider? For instance, is there a checklist for making a change like this?

I was thinking of changing it to something like the following:

mysite.com/shop/c/premium/sub-category/

And also, how much damage, if any, would this be doing to my SEO?

Thanks in advance,
Lou

[effectdigital]

So in July (2019) John Mu from Google stated that URLs are generally ok up to 1,000 characters:

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-john-mueller-recommends-keeping-urls-under-1000-characters/318739/

Google 'can' crawl and index URLs over 1,000 characters long (up to about 2k characters) but best practice seems to be up to 1,000 characters

Due to this, I personally don't agree with Moz's evaluation of, when a URL is getting too long. Your example URL, is nowhere close to 1,000 characters long. Where Moz and Google disagree I tend to side with Google info

That being said, your URL has redundant layers. Why even have "/category/" in the URL? Just go like this:

mysite.com/downloads/premium-downloads/sub-category/

People aren't so stupid that they need a fake URL layer called "/category/", to know that the following URL layer 'is' a category. IMO that's redundant architecture which is getting in your way for no reason

If you don't perform your redirects properly and you change the architecture of the site, you absolutely could see a negative impact on your rankings. Unless you're confident in terms of crawling your whole site, performing very granular redirects with high accuracy and missing nothing - I'd just leave it as it is

[Dalerio-Consulting]

One key thing to have in mind when designing your URL is to relate it to the keywords you're aiming for. Cluttering it with folders and categories will put less attention on the targeted keyword, which in your case should be about the download or purchase of the software. That is why generally in WordPress blogs it is suggested to go for the direct slug as in "site.com/url-slug-keyword/"

The perfect solution will depend on your site and what you're aiming for, but what I would suggest is to keep the URL up to one or two categories that are directly related to the targeted keywords. Also, on a study of the top sites on Google by NeilPatel, it is suggested that you keep the URL length between 50-60 characters.

As for the SEO impact, after properly completing the 301 redirect to the new URL, then you won't have any issues and will instead see growth if the change is seen positively by Google.

Daniel Rika

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