--- title: "URL length and rankings: what the Backlinko study found" url: https://seomadman.com/research/url-length-ranking-correlation-backlinko-11-8m section: research published: 2026-09-23T00:00:00.000Z modified: 2026-09-25T00:00:00.000Z author: Adam Hafez topics: ["Technical SEO"] --- # URL length and rankings: what the Backlinko study found ## The short answer Backlinko's analysis of 11.8 million Google search results found that shorter URLs tend to rank slightly better. Position #1 URLs averaged 9.2 characters shorter than position #10 URLs, and the average top 10 URL ran 66 characters. The authors stress it is correlation, not causation. ## 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](/research/page-weight-byte-size-ranking-correlation-backlinko) comes from the same dataset and carries the same caveat. ## What does Google actually recommend for URLs? Google's [URL structure documentation](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/url-structure) 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](/research/internal-linking-crawl-depth-zyppy-study) covers that side. To check a URL's length, depth, parameters and separators against Google's guidance, use the [URL structure analyzer](/tools/url-structure-analyzer). See the [technical SEO hub](/topics/technical-seo) for related work. ## Sources 1. [We Analyzed 11.8 Million Google Search Results. Here's What We Learned About SEO](https://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking) - Backlinko (primary) 2. [URL structure best practices for Google Search](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/url-structure) - Google Search Central (primary)