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
-
Odd. Unique seo question - Can you help?
This should be an interesting question - gobble up all those MOZ POINTS folks : ) Our company website is real estate based. We have nearly 30,000+ paid members on the inside that put up real estate listings (properties for sale). The members do this on their own. From an SEO stand point it sort of feels like we have a huge team of content creators putting up unique content for us. To see what I'm talking about I'll drop some links so you can review: In this first link you'll see a member of ours advertised on the NYTIMES and the clickable anchored text waterfront leads back to us or I should say the members listing. See the link below: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/realestate/city-island-a-quainter-side-of-the-bronx.html This second link is the listing page for our member that the anchored text led to. https://www.nystatemls.com/profiles/NY/SAINT_ALBANS/NEW_YORK_ESTATES_GROUP_INC/Dale_Davids/68966/listings/ When I use MOZ i can see that we got some serious link juice from the above. **This is what is happening naturally: ** When someone joins as a member the public profile of their name & office is ranking in the SERPS. Example: Higgins Realty / it's ranked #1 and brings back 100 visitors per month. https://www.nystatemls.com/agency/NY/BROOKLYN/HIGGINS_REALTY_GROUP_LLC/5575/ When someone creates a listing with our system and publishes it the address is ranking. Think of this on a mass scale. Even though they are small niche names, offices, keywords it's generating traffic. & every once in awhile the name of an office is closely related to a major keyword and we pick up something that generates say 500 to 1,500 visitors per month. When someone advertises their public profile or their listing depending on the site they advertise on or the anchored text they use it's helping our domain. Again, all of this is happening on its own we aren't pushing SEO. This simply is real estate agents and brokers doing their job and in return our Domain Authority and Page Rank is climbing. Our monthly traffic is climbing. The number of keywords we rank for is increasing. This situation must be unique because wouldn't you say that in most cases with a website they have a blog. Someone needs to write good content then try to get it linked. But in our situation our members are creating (unique content) and publishing it. How do we capitalize on this though? or I should say capitalize in a bigger way? To help everyone benefit would it be to possibly teach the members some basic SEO. What if the name of their public profile was key worded or what if we explained advertising that listing, Sharing it, getting it on other sites would benefit them. To have them link back to their profile or listing page. Maybe give them a list of suggested sites? Maybe give them a list of possible anchored texts they could use which would be keywords we want to rank for? What are your thoughts? Do you have any clever or creative ideas that would help all parties? If you want to do some research our main website is www.nystatemls.com you can review the ranking keywords, linking domains that sort of thing. Thanks for the input - Chris After
Link Building | | Cfarcher0 -
Could someone be sabataging my site by bad backlinks?
Hello, As I have said before I am new to SEO and especially new to this type of software. I am trialing MOZ, ahrefs and MajesticSEO. I just used the Site Explorer on ahrefs and it showed me that a bunch of backlinks was created today but I haven't engaged anyone in "SEO" for many months. Why would this be? See the image for a screenshot. yhpUxFv.png
Link Building | | infinart0 -
SEO Service
Hi there; Can any body direct me towards honest and true link building service. we are in the business of providing audio video services. I prefer individuals. Help will be appreciated.
Link Building | | tanveer11 -
Where Do I Post to Hire SEO Experts
I am looking to hire an expert link builder who specializes in building very high-quality links and creating content that attracts links. There used to be a board on the site to post this to, but I cant find it anymore. What is the best way to find qualified SEO experts who are mozzers?
Link Building | | gametv0 -
SEO directories
Recently I did a research of one of mine competitors and to my surprise his major backlinks located on seo directories like: http://alistdirectory.com/ http://www.ggfb.org/ http://www.bitterskank.com/ http://www.directorypage.net/ And .... he is showing on first page of Google by particular keyword "Dentist Dubai". Frankly speaking I am confused a little bit, because I believe that this SEO strategy has stopped working a long time ago. Could someone share with me his thought about this? Furthermore all of those websites are asking about a Reciprocal link, which I did find on his website. How he did it? Thanks, Russel
Link Building | | smokin_ace0 -
What are the best tactics for SEO on a brand new site?
What is on everyones to do list when starting SEO work on a brand new site that has had no SEO work done in the past?
Link Building | | MediaBazooka0 -
Longer Tail Keyword for URL and Anchor text
Hello If I am trying to rank for the term blue widgets as a primary, and also the term shiny blue widgets , and big shiny blue widgets as secondary - would the url /blue-widgets or /shiny-blue-widgets or /big-shiny-blue-widgets be better (all else equal) Would the word shiny / big dilute or affect of KW in the domain for the rankings for blue widgets (all esle equal) Regarding anchor text of inbound links, if the anchor text is shiny blue widgets, is that going to help me rank for both queries "blue widgets" and "shiny blue widgets" equally? (all else equal), or would including shiny, affect my ranking for "bliue widgets" Or is it better to keep the anchor text as just blue widgets (of course we could vary it) but Im trying to get a feel for how that would work as we are builfing some links I can control the anchor text. I hope this was clear enough Thanks Sam
Link Building | | Impact-2015550