: Will shortening a URL hurt my SEO? Will I mess up my SEO if I remove a part of my URL, even if it still takes you to the same page? An example is: example.com/services/nc/clt/charlotte-nc/...

@Caterina187

Will I mess up my SEO if I remove a part of my URL, even if it still
takes you to the same page?


YES, because this will become a new URL unless you apply a proper 301 redirection. It can still pass on the link juice, but there will be traction and it should be right back on track as long as the meta data, content, etc... are intact.

However, I do suggest having the keywords in the URL still (not to the extent that will be an exact match). As a side note, I do think that the first URL looks spammy with too many geo-modifiers.

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@Si4351233

Use a proper 301 redirection. Read more about it on MoZ article here: A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which passes between 90-99% of link juice (ranking power) to the redirected page.

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@Carla537

Proper use of rel="canonical" meta tag will not let you reduce your SERP rank.
Read more here

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