Long URLs

[rdreich49]

Many URLs of my site are long due to long navigation paths.  Here is an example:  http://tinyurl.com/6qc4syb.  My question is, if I shorten the urls (which I probably should do), does it matter that they no longer follow the navigation path?

[KaneJamison]

Shouldn't be an issue - in the example you gave, removing /estate-planning from the middle would still make sense because it's under the /education-center/ subfolder. I think this works both for users and for search engines - after the 1st or 2nd subfolder level I personally stop the hierarchy in the URL in most of my sites. You have breadcrumbs in place, which is going to be much more beneficial for users than having full URLs in my opinion.

[rdreich49]

Thanks, Kane.  That's what I thought but I wanted to get some other viewpoints.

[KaneJamison]

Glad to help. I wouldn't go redesigning the entire site just for this, but for future sites I'd consider making the Education Center section have a /education/ folder, and other URL structure changes that embrace brevity whenever possible. SEOmoz Q&A for example, is http://www.seomoz.org/q/ and still delivers a good user experience (so would /q-a/ or /qa/ )