How long is "255 bytes"?

Hello,

According to Google's answer on this page, URL's should not be longer than "255 bytes". But how long is "255 bytes"? Does it mean 255 chars? How many bytes does one character in the URL occupy?

For example, will Google follow and index the following link or it's too long? (Given that my server returns a 200 OK response to this URL)

"http://www.domain.com/cgi-bin/articles/rt6/webhosting/getarticle?title=this%20is%20just%20an%20example%20of%20a%20long%20dynamic%20URL%20and%20this%20is%20the%20title%20of%20the%20article%20&page=articles/rt6/oitu998_oi9708/ThisIsCrazyIKnow&domain=http://domain2.tld" (This is one and one-line dynamic URL. Without the quotes of course)

 

1 byte = 1 char

 

Yes 255 bytes = 255 characters

1 character takes up 8 bits (or 1 byte).

Skinny

 

Not always. if you're trying to use ASCII characters > 127 on URL you'll need more. For example http://dmoz.org/World/Español/

Also on several encoding formats like UTF8, UTF16, or Unicode, sometimes you need more than 1 byte per character.
You can learn more about this here: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/04/26/UTF

 

in any case that url example you posted is wwwwaaaaayyyyy too long

 

space also count as one character. ^^