Sphinn - Google Says, Long URLs May Hurt You

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Sphinn It!

Went Hot: June 23, 2008 - 2:44 pm
Posted By: rustybrick 377 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.seroundtable.com)
Category: Google SEO

Are you kidding me? This must be a mistake. This is just way confusing in my opinion.

9 Comments

Who Desphunn This (0)

Comments

from shocs 376 days ago #

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Ouch, this is a big hit!

from Halfdeck 376 days ago #

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Where did John say the URL was too long?

"this seems to be taking it a bit too far and I have a bit of trouble identifying anything that matches in the content of your page."

from Halfdeck 376 days ago #

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Ok John says this in the comments:

" One of the main problems with URLs like that in particular is that there is an infinite number of valid URLs that appear to be static pages but are really just dynamic URLs with parameters that can be ignored. Having URLs like that can confuse the best crawler and so we end up crawling everything but the kitchen sink and may miss out on the other great stuff on the site.

The easier you can make it for the crawlers to crawl your full site, the higher the chances that they'll get all of it right. Long URLs are not a problem if they're unique (though obviously having long URLs can lead to more users adding typos in links, but that's a different problem altogether)."

And in GGWH he mentions "Long & crazy URLs" which to me isn't the same as long URLs.

More important, he mentions "Broken HTML code In general, we try to get it right regardless of what a webmaster uses on his page. However, there are limits to what we can guess at." A nice reference for people who argue validation is a waste of time.

from astudent 376 days ago #

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This is a big hooha over nothing. It seems from the actual post, that John feels the URL is a bit spammy (without actually coming out to say so).

So yeah, long URLs may hurt you, if they are spammy keyword stuffed and have nothing to do with the page content.

from rustybrick 376 days ago #

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Yea, we all know what he meant, because we are active sphinners. But what about newbies? That is the point.

from netgeek06 376 days ago #

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I would agree with astudent keyword stuffed urls are a sure ban in google. But I don't know the buzz around this blog post.

from Halfdeck 376 days ago #

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"Yea, we all know what he meant, because we are active sphinners. But what about newbies?"

After reading the post, some newbies may think long URLs may hurt you - which isn't exactly what was said. I do appreciate the post though, because it pointed me to an interesting GGWH thread.

from ankitrawat 376 days ago #

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Lol, the new guys always suffer !!

from rhcerff 376 days ago #

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Much about nothing. The real point is that you should stick away from spammy urls. If the newbies didn't get that... then at least they won't create very long spammy urls - possibly helping them seem less spammy.