Very long URLS - SEO Black Hat?

[glaikit]

Hello friends,
I hope somebody has seen this particular tactic before and can vouch
for whether it's "asking for trouble." I am working on a site built in
Joomla. Joomla has this facility to assign URL Aliases for most of the
content - it changes the page URL to whatever you want it to say.

This particular client has used the facility to create page URLS like
this:
http://www.sitenamechangedtoprotecttheinnocent.com/index.php/ashevilles-digital-document-management-solutions-specialists/document-imaging-services-electronic-document-management-digital-document-management-digital-archiving-software-document-management-content-management-software-electronic-filing-cabinet-north-carolina

I have done a fair amount of research on this, including Google
guidelines & forum questions etc and so far, no definitive answer as
to whether this is "definitely" a Google no-no. For the time being it
"appears" to be boosting organic site rankings.

If anybody has tried this or seen it tried, and might know of the
results, please get back to me.

Thanks,
Fiona

[david kyle]

It's not a definitive "no no" because there are legitimate reasons for
having long urls. I'm pretty sure I saw a video where Matt Cutts said not
to do it in the way your client is doing it. If you do a site: on your
client, you'll see the majority of them are truncated in the SERPs. From a
user POV, they look pretty spammy to me and could have an impact on CTR.

Multiple instances of the same word in your url isn't going to do anything
for you...

David

Thanks,
Fiona

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[glaikit]

Thanks David,
The user POV is well understood for me :-)
Your comments have helped me formulate a strategy for dealing with
this. If the site had no top rankings at all I wouldn't be in a
quandary - the problem is, the darned things 'appear' to be working.
For now. :-)
Fiona

On Sep 8, 4:01 pm, "david kyle" <da...@realestatecharlotte.com> wrote:
> It's not a definitive "no no" because there are legitimate reasons for
> having long urls.  I'm pretty sure I saw a  video where Matt Cutts said not
> to do it in the way your client is doing it.  If you do a site: on your
> client, you'll see the majority of them are truncated in the SERPs.  From a
> user POV, they look pretty spammy to me and could have an impact on CTR.
>
> Multiple instances of the same word in your url isn't going to do anything
> for you...
>

> David-----Original Message-----

> From: hip...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hip...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf
>
> Of glaikit
> Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 2010 3:37 PM
> To: Hippo Internet Marketing Discussion
> Subject: Very long URLS - SEO Black Hat?
>
> Hello friends,
> I hope somebody has seen this particular tactic before and can vouch
> for whether it's "asking for trouble." I am working on a site built in
> Joomla. Joomla has this facility to assign URL Aliases for most of the
> content - it changes the page URL to whatever you want it to say.
>
> This particular client has used the facility to create page URLS like

> this:http://www.sitenamechangedtoprotecttheinnocent.com/index.php/ashevill...