What you need to know

As SEO continues to shift in the AI era, fine-tuning every aspect of your site for both users and search engines is more important than ever. 

URLs, the digital pathways to your content, remain a fundamental piece of the optimization puzzle.

While SEO tactics have evolved, crafting clean, SEO-friendly URLs remains a core strategy. 

Here’s a closer look at what defines an effective URL this year and how you can structure yours for optimal results.

Does URL length matter for SEO?

The idea that shorter URLs help with SEO is a persistent myth, but Google has repeatedly clarified that URL length does not influence rankings. 

URL length doesn’t matter for ranking purposes at all, according to Google’s John Mueller.

URLs are simply identifiers to Google, and whether they’re short or long has no direct impact on how a page ranks.

There is, however, one exception where URL length can play a minor role in the canonicalization process. 

When Google encounters multiple URLs with the same or very similar content, it chooses a single “canonical” version to index and show in search results.

Typically, a shorter and clearer URL is more likely to be selected as the canonical version. 

Still, this decision doesn’t affect rankings. It only impacts which version of the URL appears in search snippets. 

While shorter URLs might look cleaner in search results, they won’t give you a ranking edge. 

Use a consistent URL structure that works for your site and is easy to maintain in the long term.

Does URL length correlate with AI Mode results versus traditional blue link results?

Several clients have raised this question following Google I/O. To help answer it, we’ve collected data from our ongoing analysis of AI Mode responses.

From a sample of 3,123 URLs cited in AI Mode results across 580 queries in the travel, ecommerce, and SaaS sectors, we found the average URL length (excluding the domain) to be 53 characters, with a minimum of 9 and a maximum of 173.

When compared to the traditional blue link results for the same queries, the average URL length was 52, with a low of 9 and a high of 173, so there are no fundamental differences between the traditional blue links and AI Mode cited URLs.

This is another reinforcer of the relationship between optimizing for Google’s AI products and traditional search, even though they are not the same.

Are keywords in URLs a ranking signal?

Yes, keywords in URLs are technically a ranking signal, but only a very minor one. 

Google’s John Mueller has confirmed multiple times over the years that while Google may use keywords in a URL to help understand a page, the impact on rankings is minimal. 

Mueller has described the signal as “very small” and “overrated,” advising site owners not to restructure URLs solely to include keywords.

Mueller has explained that keywords in a URL can help Google better understand the page when it’s first discovered before it has been crawled or indexed. 

However, once Google has access to the page’s content, the value of the URL diminishes significantly. 

This means that while keywords in URLs might offer a slight benefit in the earliest stages of discovery, they don’t play a meaningful role in long-term ranking performance.

While including relevant keywords in URLs can help with clarity for users and initial crawling, it’s not a strategy worth investing a significant amount of resources into. 

Instead, you should focus on creating clean, descriptive URLs that make sense.

Is URL permanence important for AI citations?

Yes, and the growing number of broken links in AI citations proves why. 

Many AI tools and LLMs cite content using URLs that later return 404 errors, making it impossible to verify or revisit the source. 

This raises a critical issue for transparency, reproducibility, and trust in AI-generated content.

• Dynamic URLs aren’t reliable: Web pages move or disappear. If an AI-generated citation points to a non-permanent URL, the reference quickly becomes useless.
• Verification becomes difficult: A broken link means readers can’t fact-check the AI’s output or understand the original context. This undermines the credibility of the content and also becomes a poor brand touchpoint should a user click through from the AI tool to your website.

URL permanence is essential for robust AI citations, but since many tools fall short, alternative forms of attribution are often the only way to maintain verifiability.

Dig deeper: Changing URLs for SEO reasons – When is it OK?

Does Google use URL structure to understand pages and relationships?

Yes, but it’s not the primary signal. 

While Google doesn’t rely heavily on URL structure to interpret site hierarchy or relationships, it does use it as a supporting signal to understand context and organization. 

More critical than URL format is how easy it is to reach a page, which is click depth.

Pages that are closer to the homepage tend to carry more weight with Google. 

If a page can be reached in just a few clicks (the industry’s rule of thumb is three), it’s typically seen as more important than one buried deeper in the site’s structure. 

That means internal linking and navigation design play a bigger role in SEO than URL formatting alone.

That said, a logical and clean URL structure can still provide valuable context. 

For instance, a path like /blog/seo/basics can signal a relationship between content types, helping Google better understand how different parts of your site connect.

User-friendly URLs also enhance the visitor experience.

Descriptive, readable paths make it easier for users to understand where they are and what to expect on a page, which in turn supports better indexing by search engines.

There’s no real SEO advantage to artificially flattening your URL structure, such as placing every page at the top level. 

Instead, it’s better to organize your site in a way that reflects its content and purpose. 

Overly complex or hard-to-read URLs, especially those filled with parameters or irrelevant strings, can lead to indexing issues.

While URL structure can aid Google’s understanding of a page and its place within the website ecosystem, it should primarily serve the user.

Optimize your URL structure for crawlability, clarity, and AI citations

Despite all the noise around AI reshaping search, the fundamentals of URL structure remain remarkably stable. 

Clean, consistent, human-readable URLs still matter not because they directly boost rankings, but because they support crawlability, clarity, and long-term maintainability. 

AI might influence how content is surfaced, but it still relies on the same web infrastructure.

The basics remain unchanged and show no signs of changing. As search evolves, the value of a well-structured, user-friendly site only becomes more critical.