undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • MozCon
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    Let your business shine with Listings AI
    Moz Local

    Let your business shine with Listings AI

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers

      Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. On-Page Optimization
  4. URL length... is >115 now >255?

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.

URL length... is >115 now >255?

On-Page Optimization
3
5
2.6k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • Switch_Digital
    Switch_Digital last edited by Apr 23, 2012, 9:43 AM

    I've been having detailed discussions with a CMS provider on behalf of a client.

    Long URLs are the least of their problems however, the developer is arguing that Google has amended their algorithm and will now read URLs that are up to 255 characters long. I have stated that as far as I am aware, Google will still not read URLs over 115 characters... Before I stamp my feet, can someone confirm what is actually happening?

    SEOmoz still classes URLs >115 characters long as an amber issue.

    Thanks

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • jim_cetin
      jim_cetin @Switch_Digital last edited by Apr 23, 2012, 10:37 AM Apr 23, 2012, 10:37 AM

      Although the specification of the HTTP protocol does not specify any maximum length, practical limits are imposed by web browser and server software.

      Extremely long URLs are usually a mistake. URLs over 2,000 characters will not work in the most popular web browser. Don't use them if you intend your site to work for the majority of Internet users.

      If you must have long URI's ask your CMS provider if there's a way they can set clean url's instead of the long versions.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • OptimizeSmart
        OptimizeSmart last edited by Apr 23, 2012, 10:11 AM Apr 23, 2012, 10:08 AM

        Google can index URLs up to 2047 characters in length. You will receive a 414 error if you exceed 2047 character limit.

        http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/webmasters/crawling-indexing--ranking/h0aeO2_kpac

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • Switch_Digital
          Switch_Digital @jim_cetin last edited by Apr 23, 2012, 9:58 AM Apr 23, 2012, 9:58 AM

          Ha, no it isn't Drupal.

          It is a proprietary CMS that is a bolt on to a stock management system... oh joy.

          jim_cetin 1 Reply Last reply Apr 23, 2012, 10:37 AM Reply Quote 0
          • jim_cetin
            jim_cetin last edited by Apr 23, 2012, 9:56 AM Apr 23, 2012, 9:56 AM

            hi

            You are correct with 115,less is better though.

            The CMS provider surely can't be Drupal.

            Might be worth exploring if you have to discuss the web basics with them!

            Regards,

            Jim Cetin

            Switch_Digital 1 Reply Last reply Apr 23, 2012, 9:58 AM Reply Quote 0
            • 1 / 1
            1 out of 5
            • First post
              1/5
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • DamianTysdal

              Ranking dropped after change single page url, should I change it back?

              I was making updates to the content on the following page, and a few days later dropped from #2 SERP ranking to 50+. Things I checked: Yes, 301 redirect was implemented right away. After publishing, I manually requested indexing in search console. Right after publishing I re-submitted the  sitemap manually and Google said they had not crawled it in 9 days. My question: should I change the URL back to the old one, or give it a little more time (especially since I re-submitted sitemap) Original URL: https://www.travelinsurancereview.net/plans/travel-medical/ New URL: https://www.travelinsurancereview.net/plans/travel-medical-insurance/

              On-Page Optimization | Feb 28, 2020, 2:32 PM | DamianTysdal
              0
            • williamhuynh

              Query for paginated URLs - Shopify

              Hi there, /collections/living-room-furniture?page=2
              /collections/living-room-furniture?page=3
              /collections/living-room-furniture?page=4 Is that ok to make all the above paginated URLs canonicalised with their main category /collections/living-room-furniture Also, does it needs to be noindex, follow as well? Please advice, thank you!

              On-Page Optimization | Jun 18, 2019, 3:03 AM | williamhuynh
              1
            • JohnW-UK

              Page Title (Meta descriptions) length... how strict are you?

              I have just had a conversation with a client... the gist was this... Is it more important to stay under the 55-60 characters OR go over a bit and have the page title make sense and include the clients company name. The same argument for meta description. I have a client insisting on 55-60 length but the keywords are long and if we use the primary keyword phrase the length is 44 if we use the keyword phrase and add the company name it becomes 64. This is with us trimming it a bit. Anyone else discussed this before?

              On-Page Optimization | Jul 31, 2015, 4:00 PM | JohnW-UK
              1
            • jeeyer

              Dynamic URL Parameters + Woocommerce create 404 errors

              Hi Guys,
              Our latest Moz crawl shows a lot of 404-errors for pages that create dynamical links for users? (I guess it are dynamic links, not sure). Situation: On a page which shows products from brand X users can use the pagination icons on the bottom, or click on: View: / 24/48/All.
              When a user clicks 48 the end of the link will be /?show_products=48
              I think there were some pages that could show 48 products but do not exist anymore (because products are sold out for example), and that's why they show 404's and Moz reports them. How do I deal with these 404-errors? I can't set a 301-redirect because it depends on how many products are shown (it changes every time).
              Should I just ignore these kind of 404-errors? Or what is the best way to handle this situation?

              On-Page Optimization | May 5, 2015, 6:07 PM | jeeyer
              0
            • StoryScout

              Is using hyphens in a URL to separate words good practice?

              Hi guys, I have a client who wants to use a hyphen to separate two words in the URL to make each work stand out. Is is good or bad practice to use a hyphen in a URL and will it affect rankings? Thanks!

              On-Page Optimization | Mar 3, 2015, 12:34 AM | StoryScout
              0
            • estebanseo

              Using keywords in my URL: Doing a redirect to /keyword

              My website in "On Page Grade" received an A.Anyway, I only have 1 thing to optimize:_"Use Keywords in your URL__Using your targeted keywords in the URL string adds relevancy to your page for search engine rankings, assists potential visitors identify the topic of your page from the URL, and provides SEO value when used as the anchor text of referring links."_My website is ranking in top10 for a super high competitive keyword and all my others competitors have the keyword on their domain, but not for my URL.Since I can't change my domain for fixing this suggestion, I would like to know what do you think about doing a 301 redirect from / to mydomainname.com/keyword/So the index of my website would be the /keyword.I don't know if this can make a damage to my SERP for the big change ir it would be a great choice.

              On-Page Optimization | Mar 30, 2015, 10:13 AM | estebanseo
              0
            • toxicpls

              Post url not matching with post title ( wordpress)

              I have this site called searchoflife.com on which I have noticed the post urls are not matching with the post title. For Example:Post Title - A Dialogue With NaturePost URL - http://searchoflife.com/dialogue-nature-2013-09-12 Words like 'A' and 'with' are not present in the post URL. This has been the trend since a few days. After investigating I found out that it was due to my plugin SEO ultimate which is actually creating post slugs automatically for the post urls. So my question is whether it is advisable to use post slugs instead of the full post url. Does it affect the SERPS for my site?

              On-Page Optimization | Sep 15, 2013, 6:07 AM | toxicpls
              0
            • matt-14567

              Does it matter if your URL ends in .net or .com?

              Someone told me that having a URL that ends in .net (instead of .com) will hurt my site's SEO. Is that true?

              On-Page Optimization | May 19, 2011, 2:55 PM | matt-14567
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            • Digital Marketers
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.