Short or Long URL

[IJA]

Hy.

What do you thing about this question, what you will answer? And I would like an answer keep in mind: SEO or clients friendly?

The idea is that I have a website with longer url (40-50 character), and I have some problem when building backlinks, and having a SEO campaign. And now I'm thinking to change them all around (7000) but I'm not sure if this will improve my ranking so much to be worth change them since I'm ok with what I have achieved since now.

Thank you in advance for your answers and advices

 

[Plusplushosting-mike]

I believe that shorter will be the best.
A good domain is good money in your pocket.

 

[IJA]

I believe that shorter will be the best.
A good domain is good money in your pocket.

Well what make you thing saying that? I will be glad if you will provide mw your argument on SEO point of view.

And what do you thing Should I change all my url? And what effect will this have on my current google rating, SERP position.

Thank you

 

[himanuzo]

The shorten url is better than the longer url because visitors can easily remember the shorten url.

 

[IJA]

First of all I want to thank you all of you for sharing your opinion.

But what I try to find out, my question is if there is any difference between long and short url in the off-site SEO. It is better for your serp to have short or long url, and why that?

Yes, I agree with you the for user is better to have short url sa they can keep in mind your url, I understand that and this very obvious, but how about google and other search engine.

And my second question was how affect your searp and page-rank if you change your URL? I have already submit a sitemap to google and google have already index 98% of my site, if I change all the url now (but keep the same content) and delete the old sitemap and submit a new one will google make the changes without affect my searp or it will start all over again and crawl all my pages and review all pages.

Thank you

 

[enlytend]

The longer url *could* be a disadvantage...

User interraction is a factor in rankings. If people see the long URL in the SERPS and it looks like nonsense or spam or otherwise gives a negative impression, it can affect your clickthrough rate and thus indirectly affect your rankings.

You didn't mention hyphens, but there's some speculation (and as I recall a statement by Matt Cutts) that multiple hyphens can be a red flag. Probably not by themselves, but may be a negative if anything else about the site is "iffy."

As for changing over:

You WILL temporarily lose rankings, even if you are careful to change over properly. You will also lose a tiny bit of "link juice" from your 301's.

Generally, if you're established on a URL changing over is more trouble than it's worth. If it was 20-ish characters I'd say don't bother, but 40-50 characters is pretty extreme - I certainly understand the problems that could pose! If the site hasn't been live very long and you really like the other domain, go for it.

Among other things, you also could never run Adwords or Adcenter search/text ads to promote your current domain (too many characters for the display URL.)

 

[IJA]

The longer url *could* be a disadvantage...

User interraction is a factor in rankings. If people see the long URL in the SERPS and it looks like nonsense or spam or otherwise gives a negative impression, it can affect your clickthrough rate and thus indirectly affect your rankings.

You didn't mention hyphens, but there's some speculation (and as I recall a statement by Matt Cutts) that multiple hyphens can be a red flag. Probably not by themselves, but may be a negative if anything else about the site is "iffy."

As for changing over:

You WILL temporarily lose rankings, even if you are careful to change over properly. You will also lose a tiny bit of "link juice" from your 301's.

Generally, if you're established on a URL changing over is more trouble than it's worth. If it was 20-ish characters I'd say don't bother, but 40-50 characters is pretty extreme - I certainly understand the problems that could pose! If the site hasn't been live very long and you really like the other domain, go for it.

Among other things, you also could never run Adwords or Adcenter search/text ads to promote your current domain (too many characters for the display URL.)

Hy.

Thank you very much for your answer.

I do not have a problem with the domain name, tis is fine my problem is what comes after .xxx/(around 30 character). And I was thinking in shorten the page name.

In my case (translated) is somthing like:
fast_traslation_fom_english_to_chineze_in_new_york.html and I have a few problem when I was doing a link-building campaign because I I that google find links like that :
fast_traslation_fom_english_to_chineze_in_new_..and nothing and got some nor found error from google boot.

But from what you said I thing it is better to be more carefully next time and not modify my pages names.

Or if it is only about the page name and not the domain name will be ok?

Thank you

 

[UmbeeHosting]

There is not much difference for SEO if you have short or long url. The long url could even have an advantage over the short one since it has more words on the url. Now for the second question, changing your domain will definitely affect your SERP. Its like starting over again since search engine will consider your domain as a new website.

 

[enlytend]

Page names are less problematic. You should still do a 301 (permanent) redirect from each old page name to the new, and be aware that those redirects will cause a very small loss of link juice.

If people are reaching your site with non-existing URL's, make sure you have a good 404 page to catch them ... if there are any that are occurring frequently, 301 redirect those bad url's to the correct page also.