Hi Everybody,
My URL is 4 characters too long for Google Adwords. Is there anything I can do to have my ad qualify for Google Adwords?
Thanks for your help!
BeAWinner
Create a shorter URL which redirects to the longer URL, and use that for your ad.
Hi Dan,
Thanks for your reply. Adwords doesn’t allow automatic redirects.
Do you mean with redirect that I direct them to another link on one of my sites through which they click through to the longer URL.
Thanks!
BeAWinner
That’s not true. Very few advertisers use a direct URL, in fact, because they have a tracking system in-between to tie the clicks to sales and measure the effectiveness of their ads (beyond the limited capability of Google’s conversion tracker).
If your redirect is within the same domain, then there’s no issue. A single line in your .htaccess file to do a redirect would give you a short URL to use for your long one.
Hi Dan,
Please forgive me. I just read the guidelines of Adwords. I’m a total newbie when it comes to redirects. I have never done it like you describe it.
May I ask you to help me out. If my short domain is “haveaniceday.com” and my long domain is “haveanicedaymondaytuesdaywednesday”, how do I redirect?
Thanks
BeAWinner (Bob)
You didn’t say your domain is too long. I’d suggest using a shorter domain for your site! If you can’t, then you need to contact Google about it since their policy doesn’t account for your situation.
Hi Dan,
I mentioned in my first post that my URL is too long for Google Adwords.
Thanks for your time
BeAWinner
There’s a difference between a URL and a domain.
Domain: google.com
URL: http://google.com/search?q=test&hl=en
A domain is just part of a URL.
Is your domain alone, with no URI or query string, too long for AdWords?
i think your URL is long because you intend to get traffic to a specific page. and your page URL is something like http://your-very-long-domain-name.com/2009/01/directory/very_very_long_page_name.htm
if so, shorten your URL with TinyURL.com
Hi Blogtactic,
Thank you very much for your help with this issue. I really apprectiate it.
Have a great day!
BeAWinner!
TinyURL and other redirection services can have an impact on your analytics. Google allows 1024 character url for the destination page… how are you using that all up (i’ve seen it done but only with very robust analytic tags).
H Blogtactic and Ted,
I used tiny URL but it directs me first to the tinyURL page where I can click on a link to continue to my page.
How can I go from MY tinyURL link right away to my page?
I used tiny URL to cover URL of my download page for ebook. But when the whole URL shows up at tinyURL before clicking through to ebook, it’s not much help for this purpose.
How can I click through from download link right away to ebook?
For Google Adwords it’s a big help. But I still want to get visitors from Adwords right away to my page without a “stopover” at tiny URL.
What do I have to do to accomplish this?
Ted, you mention that Google allows 1,024 characters in URL. What are you referring to?With Adwords Google allows only 35 characters. Yahoo search marketing allows 1,024 characters.
Thank you all for all your help and support!
BeAWinner
get a shorter URL and use a 301 redirect
Are you sure you’re using the right input field from Google? the 35 character limit is for the display url, not the actual destination url.
BeAWinner,
TinyURL will convert your long URL into a shorter one and offer two links. the direct short url (e.g http://tinyurl.com/ckkfsa) and PREVIEW url (e.g http://preview.tinyurl.com/ckkfsa).
if you include the PREVIEW url, user who click on the PREVIEW URL will need to click further to go to the actual (original) url.
if you include the non-preview url, user who click on that url will be automatically redirect to your actual (original) url.
this behavior works on normal html pages but I not certain if the behavior work the same with Google AdWord.