How long can a URL be to be google friendly?

[skuba]

How long can a URL be to be SE friendly?

How deep can be the directory structure?

Is there a difference if using more slashes or dashes when rewriting URLs to make them more SE friendly?
We are thinking about balancing that. We would separate parameters with slashes and use dashes to cover spaces.

EXAMPLE:

www.mysite.com/list/departmentxyz/categoryxyz/1234-1234/xyx/the-name-of-my-widget.htm

Is it ok to have many slashes?

I appreciate your help.

Thanks

[DerekH]

I've seen a URL two lines long (about 160 characters) doing very nicely in the SERPS.

It doesn't *prove* anything, but it disproves the fact that a long URL is particularly detrimental.
DerekH

[Macro]

www.mysite.com/list/departmentxyz/categoryxyz/1234-1234/xyx/the-name-of-my-widget.htm

I have one site where the typical URL is double that length and the site does quite well in SERPS. But I think that having keywords in the folder and file names is not that important or useful anymore.

[k18boy]

(still very new)

would changin the url to make it read "http://www.mysite/keyword1/keyword2/" etc etc make it rank better?

if that makes sense..

thanks.

[MedCenter]

Google wont mind. keep it under 255 chars :)

[DerekH]

And, of course, decide whether it's a URL you'd ever expect a visitor to have to paste into the browser address bar, for example, from an email.

I've seen plenty of long URLs mangled by email when some helpful soul has tried to mail the URL to a friend by way of recommendation, Some visitors may not have the patience to glue it all back together.

Certainly if you have external advertising that refers to your site, it's nice to have URLs like...

www.example.com/bargains

DerekH

[SyntheticUpper]

This is a particularly important question, because if we are to defeat the daft, cranky algo, we may need synonyms in our url.

e.g.

www.w*dget.com/widget synonym/widget widget adjective/acronym-with-letter-missing(AWLM)/wodget/widgets.html/for heaven's-sake-don't-mention-widgets-until-you-get-to-the-html-page-about-widgets/WIDGETS/WIDGETS.amazon/Amazon.com/Amazon.com.widgets/

Oh hell!

[GoogleGuy]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, SyntheticUpper. I left a message for you in the brandy update thread, btw.