How long of a URL is too long?

[Jondoe0069]

Keywords in a domain name are important, but how long is too long? Is a 4 word, 21 character common phrase too long if I'm building a landing page (possibly more) around a niche.

Do the search engines prefer shorter names over keyword stuffed names?

Also- if I have a few good keyword-rich domain names for the same niche, should I just redirect them to the same site or build diff. sites around each specific keyword?

Thanks for any help.

 

[LazyHippy]

There are more experienced people than me around, hopefully someone can give you better answers.

In my opinion a 4-word 21-character phrase isn't too long. I'm not sure what would be though. The url keywords need to be relevant to the content, but I'm not sure if and how too many might be penalised. (and duplicates eg. gamereviewsite.com/reviews/games/rpg-games/game-review) - Any SEO experts around?

Regarding the other domains, if they are variations of the same name and you get type in traffic or are trying to build a brand then yes direct them to your site. If they are different but in the same niche then it might be more beneficial to set up separate sites (different hosting/IP) and link to each other. Again, I'm sure someone else can give more/better advice on this.

 

[Jondoe0069]

That makes sense. I was thinking along the same lines, but just wanted to go about this the right way from the begining. I can easily come up with good long keyword rich domain names that are still available, but if that isn't the best way to go, I don't mind taking a little extra time and thought to come up with shorter names.