long URLs
URLs over 120 characters are harder to share and may signal poor site structure
What it is
crawler.sh flags a page as having a long URL when the full URL exceeds 120 characters. This is check #10 in the SEO analysis.
Why it matters for SEO
While search engines can handle long URLs, shorter URLs have practical advantages:
- Shareability - Long URLs are difficult to share in emails, messages, and social media. They often get truncated or broken.
- User trust - Users can read and understand short URLs in search results, increasing click confidence. A URL like
/blog/seo-guideis more trustworthy than/blog/2024/01/15/category/seo/the-complete-guide-to-seo-for-beginners-part-1. - Keyword visibility - Search engines bold matching keywords in URLs. Shorter URLs make keywords more prominent.
- Site structure signal - Excessively long URLs often indicate deep nesting or overly complex site architecture.
Why it matters for AEO
AI answer engines display source URLs alongside citations. Short, readable URLs look more authoritative and are easier for users to verify. AI systems may also use URL structure as a signal for content organization and topic hierarchy.
How to fix it
Shorten URLs by simplifying the path structure:
| Before | After |
|---|---|
/blog/2024/01/15/the-complete-beginners-guide-to-technical-seo-audits | /blog/technical-seo-audit-guide |
/products/category/subcategory/item/widget-pro-v2-special-edition | /products/widget-pro-v2 |
Guidelines:
- Remove unnecessary path segments (dates, deeply nested categories)
- Use hyphens to separate words
- Remove stop words (a, the, and, or) from URL slugs
- Keep URLs descriptive but concise
- Set up 301 redirects when changing existing URLs
What crawler.sh reports
In the CLI, long URLs appear under the “Long URLs” section of crawler seo output. Each affected URL is listed. In the desktop app, they appear in the SEO Issues card.
