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SEO Madmanby Adam Hafez
ResearchTechnical SEO

URL length and rankings: what the Backlinko study found

Backlinko's 11.8M-result study found shorter URLs correlate with slightly better Google rankings. Here is the method, the numbers and the limits.

Published · 3 min read

Written byAdam HafezUpdated
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Key takeaways

  • Backlinko's 11.8 million result study found that first place URLs are on average 9.2 characters shorter than tenth place URLs.
  • The average URL length for a top 10 Google result in the study was 66 characters, and most first page URLs fell between 40 and 100 characters.
  • The authors offer a possible explanation, that a long URL tends to sit several clicks from the homepage and so receives less authority.
  • Backlinko states the work is a correlation study, so the data cannot show that shortening a URL raises a ranking.
  • The study does not report on keywords in the URL, so no claim about keyword placement in URLs can be sourced to it.

Do shorter URLs rank better in Google?

In Backlinko’s 11.8 million result analysis, they tend to, but only slightly. The study reports that URLs at position #1 are on average 9.2 characters shorter than URLs at position #10. The average top 10 URL is 66 characters, and most first page URLs sit between 40 and 100 characters. A 9 character gap is small next to that 60 character spread, which is why the authors say “slightly”.

How was the URL length finding produced?

Brian Dean of Backlinko worked with Ahrefs, which supplied much of the raw data, and examined 11.8 million Google results to ask which factors correlate with first page rankings. URL length was one factor among many in the same dataset, measured as the character length of ranking URLs and compared by position from #1 to #10. The authors link a methods page and published the raw data on GitHub. This write-up describes that method, not one of ours. We did not rerun the analysis.

Why might short URLs rank a little higher?

The authors offer three possible reasons, none of which the study tests:

  • Click-through rate. They suggest short URLs may lead to a higher organic click-through rate.
  • Topic clarity. They suggest a short URL may help Google understand what the page is about.
  • Site depth. They note that a long URL tends to point to a page several clicks from the homepage, which usually means less authority flowing to it.

The third reason matters most for interpreting the number. If long URLs are mostly deep pages, then depth and internal authority, not characters, would be the driver, and trimming a slug on a deep page would leave the real cause untouched. The study frames the section around Google’s own advice to use simple URLs and avoid extremely long ones, rather than around a claim that length is a ranking factor.

Does this prove that URL length affects rankings?

No. The authors state that because it is a correlation study, it is impossible to determine from the data alone why a pattern occurs. The public article reports averages and the 9.2 character gap but no correlation coefficient, so the strength of the relationship cannot be checked from it. It also does not report keywords in the URL or folder depth as their own measures, so no claim about either can be sourced to this study. The related page weight finding comes from the same dataset and carries the same caveat.

What does Google actually recommend for URLs?

Google’s URL structure documentation is about readability and crawl efficiency, not a character limit. It advises:

  • Use readable words rather than long ID numbers in URLs.
  • Use hyphens instead of underscores to separate words.
  • Trim parameters that do not change the content.
  • Avoid overly complex URLs, especially ones with multiple parameters, because they can cause problems for crawlers and create many URLs pointing to the same content.

What should a site owner do with this?

Build new URLs to that guidance and keep slugs short where it costs nothing. Do not rewrite existing URLs just to shave characters: a URL change needs redirects and time to settle, and this study cannot show a gain to offset that. Where long URLs are also deep pages, the depth is the more plausible problem, and the internal linking and crawl depth research covers that side. To check a URL’s length, depth, parameters and separators against Google’s guidance, use the URL structure analyzer. See the technical SEO hub for related work.

The evidence

Sample
11.8M Google search results (Backlinko x Ahrefs)

Hypothesis: Shorter URLs are associated with higher positions in Google's first page of results, which would suggest that URL length is one of several characteristics that move together with ranking.

Method: Backlinko, with raw data supplied by Ahrefs, analyzed 11.8 million Google search results to identify characteristics that correlate with first page rankings. For URL length it compared the character length of ranking URLs by position, from #1 to #10. The authors published a separate study methods page and uploaded the raw data to GitHub. As a correlation study, it measures whether URL length and position move together across the sample, not whether one causes the other.

Findings

  • Under the heading 'Short URLs Tend to Rank Slightly Better than Long URLs', the study reports that URLs at position #1 are on average 9.2 characters shorter than URLs at position #10.
  • The average URL length for a top 10 result in Google is 66 characters, and most URLs on the first page are between 40 and 100 characters.
  • The authors suggest that a long URL tends to point to a page several clicks from the homepage, which usually means less authority flowing to that page.

Limitations: The study is correlational, and its authors say it is impossible to pinpoint why a pattern appears, so a shorter URL is not shown to cause a better position. Length is confounded with site structure and authority, which the authors themselves raise. The public article reports averages and the 9.2 character gap but not a coefficient, so the strength of the relationship cannot be checked from it. The study does not report keywords in the URL or folder depth as separate measures, so neither is covered here.

Sources

  1. 1.We Analyzed 11.8 Million Google Search Results. Here's What We Learned About SEO - BacklinkoPrimary
  2. 2.URL structure best practices for Google Search - Google Search CentralPrimary

About the author

Adam Hafez
Adam Hafez

Founder, UpgradIQ FZC LLC

Adam Hafez works on technical SEO and search measurement: how pages get crawled, indexed, ranked and now quoted by answer engines. He founded UpgradIQ, which reads Google Search Console and GA4 to tie ranking movement back to the changes that caused it. He publishes what the data supports and states the limits of it.

  • Technical SEO
  • Search Console and GA4 measurement
  • Answer engine optimization
  • Structured data

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