Earlier we reported that Google does not use URL length as a ranking factor. While that may be true, Google does use the URL length as a “very light” signal for canonicalization, said John Mueller of Google.

John said on Twitter “we use URL length very lightly for canonicalization.” John explained “if we spot url.htm?utm=greencheeseandham and url.htm, we might shoose url.htm as the canonical assuming all else is the same.” Why? He said “that can make it look like shorter URLs are better for SEO, but it’s really just a side-effect.”

Technically, this is not a ranking factor but a way for Google to select the proper canonical URL.

Here are those tweets, you can click through to see more of the context:

We use URL length very lightly for canonicalization, so if we spot url.htm?utm=greencheeseandham and url.htm, we might shoose url.htm as the canonical assuming all else is the same. That can make it look like shorter URLs are better for SEO, but it’s really just a side-effect.

— 🧀 John 🧀 (@JohnMu) September 24, 2021

Forum discussion at Twitter.