Long URLs
Short, readable web addresses are easier to share, easier to trust, and tend to perform better in search. 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 emails 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 keep working.
- Some pages legitimately need long URLs - deep archives, 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 search engines enforce.