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    4. URL Length Issue

    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 Issue

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    • Cart_generation
      Cart_generation last edited by

      MOZ is telling me the URLs are too long.

      I did a little research and I found out that the length of the URLs is not really a serious problem. In fact, others recommend ignoring the situation.

      Even on their blog I found this explanation:

      "Shorter URLs are generally preferable. You do not need to take this to the extreme, and if your URL is already less than 50-60 characters, do not worry about it at all. But if you have URLs pushing 100+ characters, there's probably an opportunity to rewrite them and gain value.

      This is not a direct problem with Google or Bing - the search engines can process long URLs without much trouble. The issue, instead, lies with usability and user experience. Shorter URLs are easier to parse, copy and paste, share on social media, and embed, and while these may all add up to a fractional improvement in sharing or amplification, every tweet, like, share, pin, email, and link matters (either directly or, often, indirectly)."

      And yet, I have these questions: In this case, why do I get this error telling me that the urls are too long, and what are the best practices to get this out?

      Thank You

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • SMTUSA
        SMTUSA Subscriber @NickW816 last edited by

        Question: if you start redirecting the longer URLs for the shorter, don't you get actually do get dinged for - ecessive 301s or daisy-chain 301s.

        How do you handle this for large sites with products? Canonicals?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • NickW816
          NickW816 last edited by

          Agree with Steve above. URL length is a very minimal SEO factor, to attempt to shorten them you could do an analysis of your URLs "silo structure" and see if you can get rid of unnecessary parts of the link.

          For example, if you have "xyz.com/services/marketing/seo/local-seo", you can maybe cut "services" and "marketing" (and maybe even "seo" from the structure, so the URL can just be "xyz.com/local-seo", and then 301 the old URL to the new of course.

          Check out this article from Search Engine Land for more info on URL Structure for SEO- https://searchengineland.com/infographic-ultimate-guide-seo-friendly-urls-249397

          Nick White
          SEO Services KC
          https://seo-kansas-city.com/

          SMTUSA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • slatronica
            slatronica last edited by

            It's a signal that may be valuable for sites but one that may not have a huge impact on it's own.

            I like to have shorter URLs because it ends up being easier and more friendly to share. Longer URLs can be a deterrent. I also like to pay closer attention to the click depth of the page, not just length of the URL.

            I'm not sure you'll be hurt by a long URL like:
            http://www.yourtld.com/blog/02/08/18/some-crazy-long-slug-nested-with-dates-that-triggers-moz-errors

            I would bet you can get that page ranked if the content is valuable enough, even with a longer URL. But the issues start to pop up If you have a site that has content only found by browsing the nested pages it is a larger issue.

            For example:
            http://yourtold.com/services/cleaning/windows/indoors
            This is an example where I'm really worried about the length, but more importantly the overall structure of the URL and site. It may be difficult users, and crawlers to find this content making it less search friendly overall when the content is 4-5 layers deep.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
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