There’s no shortage of opinions on URL length and SEO. Despite consistent guidance from Google, the myth persists that shorter URLs offer some kind of ranking advantage.

Recently, we saw a new SEO tool—this time in the Squarespace ecosystem—recommend a specific word count for URLs. The result? Site owners second-guessing stable, valid URLs for no meaningful reason.

Myth: URL length is an SEO metric.
Reality: It’s not.

For SEO, there is no ideal URL length. Google doesn’t use URL length as a ranking factor. Clean, readable URLs are a best practice for clarity and user trust, but trimming or rewriting URLs purely for length is unnecessary.

What Google Actually Says

Google’s own guidance is often buried beneath outdated checklists, plugin defaults, and increasingly, AI Overviews that echo legacy assumptions. In the video above from the Search Central series, Search Advocate John Mueller gives a clear response:

“The direct answer is no. The URL length doesn’t matter. We use URLs as identifiers; it doesn’t matter how long they are.”

He goes on to clarify:

“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.”

That’s the core takeaway: length doesn’t affect rankings. What matters is consistency and maintainability.

Why Do Tools Flag Long URLs?

Many widely used SEO tools—including ones like Yoast, Rank Math, SEOptimer, and Woorank—flag long URLs, slugs, or permalinks as problematic. These alerts usually appear under “indexing,” “readability,” or “crawlability,” implying a ranking effect that doesn’t exist.

The thresholds are arbitrary:

Over 75 or 100 characters? “Too long.”
Too many slashes? “Too deep.”
No exact keyword match? “Missed opportunity.”

These rules aren’t based on how search engines actually evaluate content. Rather, they reflect a checklist-driven approach that prioritizes easily measurable elements over meaningful signals.

Each tool defines “length” differently—some count characters in the path, others in the full URL, and a few count words. There’s no standard—because Google doesn’t use URL length as a ranking factor.

These scores exist to show progress. “URL length” is easy to measure, so it became a proxy for quality—even if it has no real impact.

Is There a Technical URL Limit?

Yes—but it’s technical, not SEO-related. Most modern browsers and systems can handle very long URLs, and most websites will never approach those limits:

Internet Explorer maxes out at 2,083 characters.
Chrome, Firefox, and Safari can handle tens of thousands.

In the video above, Google’s John Mueller casually recommends staying under 1,000 characters—not for SEO, but simply to make monitoring easier.

For the vast majority of sites, URL length is a non-issue from a technical perspective.

So, How Long Should a URL Be For SEO?

There’s no specific character count to aim for.

Generally accepted URL best practices call for them to be clean, clear, and concise. This means short enough to be readable, long enough to describe the content, and stable enough to be shared and linked.

If your CMS generates longer URLs with nested folders, that’s not an SEO issue in itself. It might reflect suboptimal site structure, but URL length alone won’t affect rankings.

If you’re looking for the “ideal” URL length, remember: that idea comes from legacy tools and outdated assumptions—not from how Google evaluates pages today.

On our own site, about 95% of URLs are under 80 characters, and 80% fall under 65. Not because we’ve ever optimized for length, but because we optimize for users and readability.

Note: On large, dynamic, or filter-heavy sites, overly complex URLs with multiple parameters can affect crawl efficiency. That’s more relevant for enterprise-level setups—not typical for platforms like Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, Webflow, or most HubSpot builds. Google explains these scenarios here.

The One Exception: Canonicalization

Google points out one corner case where URL length plays a role: canonicalization. If they find multiple versions of a page, they pick one version to index. In that process, Google may choose the “shorter and clearer” URL, assuming everything else is equal.

This isn’t a ranking advantage—it’s simply how Google chooses between multiple duplicate URLs when they exist.

What About CTR and Readability?

It’s still common to hear that shorter URLs improve click-through rates (CTR)—but that idea is largely outdated. In most modern search results, full URLs are rarely shown.

On mobile, Google shows the site name, favicon, and root domain, not the URL path.
On desktop, it often shows breadcrumb-style paths or truncated slugs.

CTR is driven by your title tag, meta description, and brand familiarity—not URL length. Your title tag, site name, and favicon are far more prominent in the SERPs.

Proof by Example: Why This URL Is Long

This post uses an intentionally long URL to demonstrate a point. If it ranks, it’s not because of the URL length. If it doesn’t, it’s not because of the URL length.

We’re not suggesting you adopt 100-character URLs or add words unnecessarily. Normally, this post would live at /blog/url-length. But sometimes it takes proof-by-example to reset expectations.

The key is to use URLs that make sense for your users and your content model—not because a tool assigns a score. And if you do change a URL, make sure you know how to handle 301 redirects—because that can affect SEO.