Poor URLs Can Cause Browsers to Crash

One of the best practices for building an SEO-friendly URL is to be as short as possible. A more structured URL displays the path of the webpage in relation to the main site. Although Internet Explorer has a URL length limit of 2,083 characters, many believe going over 2,000 characters is ill-advised.

The reason, however, isn't just for readability and accessibility. Today's browsers could crash if the URL is too long. This phenomenon has been observed dozens of times, like in a December 1, 2014 support ticket raised to the Mantis Bug Tracker. Mantis couldn't fix the problem since the fault lies with settings beyond its control.

Getting into the heart of the problem would be too technical, so your safest bet is to adopt good URL practices. Structure your URL using the page location model, which looks like this:

http://www.mydomain.com/folder/page/keyword

By stating the components of the page in the URL, visitors can easily determine where they are in your website. Inserting the keyword in the URL increases your website's exposure in search results. Ask yourself: "Would I be better off with a URL that tells a lot of info than a messed-up string of alphanumeric characters?"

Websites that crash browsers are frowned upon by the Internet community, so make sure your URL is as short as possible.