Does Short URLs Affect SEO?

It may surprise you that shorter URLs don’t really rank your pages higher than longer ones.

However, there are cases when it may come into play that aren’t related to ranking.

There is a common belief that a shorter URL makes your site’s address clearer, which makes Google’s crawler easier to analyze. People also believe that it makes a page rank higher.

A recent video on the Ask Googlebot YouTube series has debunked this myth.

John Mueller, Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst, discussed this topic in it.

In this article, we will talk about the length of URLs and their possible effects on SEO. We also included some of the best link shorteners.

What Does John Mueller Have to Say About URL’s Lengths?

In the recent video of Ask Googlebot, the following question was asked-

“Do shorter URLs actually make an impact compared to long URLs, or is this just another SEO myth?”

John Mueller answered this question and clarified that a URL’s length does not affect SEO. However, he also said that a shorter URL may help in certain aspects, albeit not ranking.

His response was this-

“The direct answer is no. The URL length doesn’t matter. We use URLs as identifiers; it doesn’t matter how long they are. Personally, I try to keep them shorter than 1,000 characters, but that’s just to make monitoring easier. The number of slashes in there also doesn’t matter.”

As you can see, he mentioned his personal preference for the URL to be less than 1,000 characters. He goes on to explain that it helps him monitor and track the information easily.

Note that he also said something similar back in 2019, recommending a URL character count to be within 1,000 characters.

Does that mean that short URLs have no advantages? No, your efforts to shorten your links weren’t wasted exactly, as there are indeed some benefits.

Let’s talk about this in the next section.

Short URL and Its Relation with Google’s Canonicalization

Suppose your website has multiple pages with the same content and similar URLs. So, when Google needs to choose one of them to show in the search result, how do they choose?

That’s right! They go for the page with the shorter URL. It is called canonicalization. Note that the URL’s length isn’t the only factor that goes into canonicalization.

It is best to use the canonical tag when you want a specific content to be picked by Google among various duplicate ones. Just use the rel=“canonical” attribute on the canonical pages.

John Mueller also talked about this in his answer in good detail. Let’s see what he had to say-

“I’m currently only aware of one part of our systems where the URL length plays a role- that part is canonicalization.

Canonicalization is what happens when we find multiple copies of a page on your website, and we have to pick one URL to use for indexing.

If we find a shorter and clearer URL, our systems tend to select that one.”

According to him, it is not just a short URL but also a clearer one.

So, any link address where the URL doesn’t contain many slashes may help any particular page to get chosen among similar ones within the same domain (canonicalization).

However, similar to the length, the clarity or structure of the URL also does not affect SEO, which is related to another myth. Many believe that the number of slashes affects SEO negatively.

According to them, a flat URL does better in SEO than one with hyphens or slashes. However, it doesn’t, which gets clearer by the rest of Mueller’s answer-

“This does not affect ranking. It’s purely a matter of which URL is shown in search. So, to sum up, when it comes to search rankings, neither the URL length nor the number of slashes matter. Use a URL structure that works for you and which you can keep for the long run.”

Mueller advises people to work with a link structure that is beneficial to the site owner. Yes, you don’t have to change a URL like-

WebsiteName.com/articles/blog-titles

To-

WebsiteName.com/blog-title

Only do it if the latter helps you track your pages better.

In the next section, we will explain the other areas outside SEO where a short link may help you.

Possible Benefits of Short and Clear URLs

Most pros of shorter and clearer URLs are about easier handling and managing. It is also visually more appealing in many cases. Without further ado, let us explain some such benefits-

User Preference

A shorter or flat URL usually attracts more users, according to Google’s Matt Cutts 2010 video. He compared two URLs; one had its keyword in the pathname and another in the filename.

He said they don’t make any difference in the SEO ranking per se, but one of their structures may appear more appealing to users.

According to him, a URL with hyphens instead of slashes seems spammy to the audience. By the way, the two URLs he used were –

/tools/wood/drills.html (keyword in the pathname)
/tools-wood-drills.html (hyphenated keyword in the filename)

His exact words were –

“As far as search engine ranking, I’m not sure that there’s really that much difference between the two.

But you might want to be a little careful because of the user experience of having a really long filename that’s just stuffed with hyphens. People might not like it if they see dash, dash, dash, dash, dash, dash, and so they might not click on it.”

Cutts reminded everyone of a very important factor: your content attracting more visitors is more important than ranking at the top.

After all, sites usually want to rank higher to gain more visitors in the first place. With a more appealing URL structure, a page may get more visits even after ranking lower than some rivals.

In cases like this, shorter or clearer URLs may help your traffic lead directly, even without pushing your site’s ranking higher.

Easier to Send a Backlink to

When linking to a website, there may be instances where one has to type in the URL manually. While copying it directly from the targeted page is easier, it may not always be viable.

In those cases, a shorter or clearer URL comes in handy. It will prevent typos and other errors while making the process faster.

Easier to Understand the Context

Check these two links in the image below-

In the first one, you can easily guess that the link is about the challenges one may face during the link-building process. The audience can learn the context of the page even before entering it.

Meanwhile, the second URL doesn’t explain any of that despite containing a blog. As such, visitors may not understand what it is about until after entering.

Additionally, having a clear URL that includes the keyword in a short and surmised way is better than having a long string of words by adding the whole title to the URL.

Let us remind you that it is all about user impact and not SEO ranking.

What Is a Link Shortener?

A link shortener is a handy tool people use to shorten and customize their links. Natural URLs often don’t include brand keywords or context in the content.

However, you can add any branding you prefer to the URL using a link shortener. Many of them can reduce the length of a URL to as low as 10 characters.

You can find various link shorteners online, some free and others paid. Some of them are better than others because of their speed, features, and accuracy.

What Is a 301 Affiliate Link?

A 301 affiliate link is one where a 301 redirect is implemented. This redirect leads the visitors to a new permanent location.

If the site owner moves a page or a domain to a new location, they use the 301 redirect to lead the visitors to the new place, even when someone clicks on the old URL.

The process transfers the link juice to the redirected page. However, if the movement is temporary, one can use the 302 redirect, which doesn’t pass any link equity.

How to Implement 301 Redirect

Implementing 301 redirect can be pretty simple if your site runs on the Apache web server. You will simply need to edit your .htaccess file.

Check your site’s root folder and locate the .htaccess file. If there are none, create one using Notepad for Windows or TextEdit for Mac (remove the .txt at the end when creating it).

There are many other ways to do it, of course.

Redirecting an Old Page to a New One

Simply insert the following code in your .htaccess file-

1 Redirect 301 /old-page.html /new-page.html

If you are using WordPress, use the redirection plugin instead.

Redirecting an Old Domain to a New One

Use the following code in your .htaccess file instead-

1 RewriteEngine on

2 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^oldsite.com [NC,OR]

3 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.oldsite.com [NC]

4 RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://newsite.com/\ [L,R=301,NC]

Changing domain from non-www to www-

1 RewriteEngine on

2 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com [NC]

3 RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/\ [L,R=301,NC]

Changing domain from www to non-www-

1 RewriteEngine on

2 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com [NC]

3 RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/\ [L,R=301,NC]

Don’t copy-paste the ‘RewriteEngine on’ if it is already in the .htaccess file, and use the rest of the code.

Musfiqur Memo

Hey, I'm Musfiqur Memo, founder of RankPa.com. I've been dedicated to boosting businesses through specialized SEO and link building services, propelling your online success.

Does Short URLs Affect SEO?

Table of Contents

What Does John Mueller Have to Say About URL’s Lengths?

Short URL and Its Relation with Google’s Canonicalization