URL Length Checker
Paste hundreds of URLs and instantly check their lengths. Flag URLs that are too long, sort and filter results, and export as CSV for your SEO audit.
💡 Tip: You can paste URLs with or without the https:// prefix — both are supported.
Tool created by iNet Ventures
URL Length Thresholds Explained
There's no single official limit from Google, but years of SERP observation and Google documentation give us clear benchmarks:
≤75 charactersExcellent/seo-tools
The gold standard. Short, clean URLs are easy to read in SERPs, easy to share, and easy to remember. This is what you should aim for on all new pages.
76–115 charactersGood/blog/how-to-improve-your-website-seo
Perfectly acceptable. Still readable in most SERP displays. No action needed — just avoid making it longer.
116–200 charactersToo Long/blog/how-to-improve-your-website-seo-in-2024-complete-guide-for-beginners
Getting unwieldy. URLs at this length are often truncated in SERP snippets, look messy when shared, and frequently indicate stop words or redundant keywords in the path. Worth cleaning up.
>200 charactersCritical/shop/category/subcategory/product-name?ref=abc&utm_source=google&session=xyz
Problematic. Almost certainly truncated in search results. May include unnecessary parameters, deeply nested paths, or session IDs. Fix immediately on any SEO-important pages.
URL Structure Best Practices for SEO
Length is just one dimension of URL quality. These structural rules all apply:
Use hyphens, not underscores
Google treats hyphens as word separators, but underscores join words together. /seo-tools is read as two words; /seo_tools is read as one word "seo_tools". Always use hyphens.
Use lowercase only
URLs are case-sensitive on many servers. /Page and /page are technically different URLs, which can create duplicate content. Always use lowercase to avoid this.
Include the primary keyword
Your target keyword should appear in the URL — once. Don't keyword-stuff with multiple variants. /seo-audit-tool is good; /seo-audit-seo-tool-free-seo-audit is not.
Remove stop words
Words like the, a, an, of, for, and, in add length with no SEO value. /guide-to-building-backlinks → /building-backlinks. Check every word: does it add meaning or just length?
Minimise subdirectory depth
Each extra / adds characters and dilutes authority. Ideally: 1-2 levels deep (/blog/seo-tools). Beyond 4 levels is a red flag. Flat site structures tend to rank better.
Avoid dates unless necessary
Dates in URLs (/2024/01/15/my-post) add 12+ characters and make URLs look stale after a year. Unless your content is genuinely date-specific (news), use date-free permalinks.
Handle trailing slashes consistently
Both /page/ and /page are valid, but mixing them creates duplicate content. Pick one style and canonicalise the other. Most modern sites prefer no trailing slash.
Use HTTPS
HTTP URLs are flagged as not secure in Chrome and receive a minor ranking penalty. All new URLs should be HTTPS by default. HTTP URLs add zero characters but signal a serious security gap.
Query Strings and URL Length
Query strings (?param=value) are a major driver of long URLs. They cause two problems: length and duplicate content. The same page can be reached via dozens of parameter combinations, each creating a separate URL.
UTM parameters
?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=springFix: Never leave UTM params in canonical URLs. Use canonical tags or strip them server-side.
Session IDs
?sessionid=abc123def456Fix: Session IDs in URLs are a serious crawl budget waste. Use cookie-based sessions instead.
Filter parameters
?color=red&size=large&sort=priceFix: Use canonical tags on filtered URLs, or disallow them in robots.txt if they have no unique SEO value.
Pagination
?page=2&per_page=20Fix: Use rel="next"/"prev" or paginated canonical tags. Consider numbered path segments (/page/2) instead.
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