Long URLs
Short, readable web addresses are easier to share, easier to trust, and tend to perform better in search results. Silktide reports pages whose addresses are exceptionally long.
Compare:
https:\/\/example.com\/products\/office-chairs
https:\/\/example.com\/catalog\/category\/view\/id\/2847\/dept\/furniture\/subdept\/seating\/type\/office\/style\/ergonomic\/collection\/2026-spring-professional-series\/variant\/adjustable-lumbar
Why this matters
The highest-ranking URLs are generally short. Long URLs are harder for people to read, type, and share, get truncated in e-mails and messages, and often signal deeper problems: content buried many levels deep, or machine-generated paths stuffed with parameters that create duplicate content.
A concise URL that names the page's topic also gives both people and search engines an immediate clue about what the page is, before they click.
How to fix it
- Shorten the page's URL slug to its essential words - most content management systems let you edit it independently of the page title.
- Flatten unnecessary folder depth. Every level in the path should earn its place.
- When you change a URL, add a redirect from the old address so existing links continue to work.
- Some pages legitimately need long URLs - deep archives or technical documentation. those findings.
How Silktide tests this
- Take the page's host name and path, ignoring any query string (the part after
?). - Count its characters.
- Flag the page when that length exceeds 200 characters.
The threshold is deliberately generous: it targets exceptional URLs, not ordinary long-ish ones. There is no fixed limit that search engines enforce.