What URL length is best for SEO?

Under 75 characters is the SEO sweet spot. Many studies show that the top-ranked URLs average 50–60 characters.

Do query parameters count toward the limit?

Yes. The full URL — including query strings (?utm_source=...) and fragments (#section) — counts toward the total length.

How long can URLs be in Google search results?

Google displays roughly 75 characters of the URL in search snippets before truncating to a breadcrumb path or ellipsis.

Should I shorten with a URL shortener?

For sharing, yes (Bitly, TinyURL). For your own site's URLs, no — keep them descriptive and meaningful, just short.

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Free Counter Tool

Free URL Length Checker

URLs can technically run up to 2,048 characters in modern browsers, but the SEO sweet spot is under 75. Short, descriptive URLs rank better in search, get shared more often, and look cleaner in print and ads. Paste your URL below to check it against best practices. Pair this with our Meta Description Length Checker to optimize both halves of your search snippet.

URL length

Optimal (target: under 75)

How the URL Length Checker Works

The counter measures the total character length of your URL — protocol, domain, path, query string, and fragment. It compares your length against three thresholds: SEO-optimal (≤75 chars), acceptable (≤155 chars), and browser-max (≤2,048 chars).

Tips & Best Practices

1Under 75 characters is the SEO sweet spot

URLs under 75 characters rank measurably better in Google search. Most top-10 results have URLs under 60 characters.

2Use hyphens, not underscores

Google treats hyphens as word separators but underscores as part of one word. /my-blog-post is searchable; /my_blog_post is not.

3Strip stop words from slugs

/the-best-way-to-write-good-content can become /best-way-write-content with no loss of meaning.

4Lowercase only

Mixed-case URLs cause duplicate-content issues (servers may treat /About and /about as different pages). Lowercase all paths.

5Avoid deep nesting

/category/subcategory/topic/sub-topic/post-name reads as low priority to crawlers. Two levels of nesting maximum for important pages.

Need a Full Text Analysis?

Our main Character Counter gives you a complete breakdown — characters, words, sentences, paragraphs, reading time, and keyword frequency — all in one view.

📊Open Full Character Counter

FAQ

Modern browsers support URLs up to 2,048 characters in the address bar, with some (Chrome, Edge) tolerating much longer. Server software (Apache, Nginx) typically limits URLs to 8,000 characters by default.

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