Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/this-website-has-the-longest-u.html
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I’d hate to have to read that URL back over the phone. And I’m disappointed they never got an SSL certificate for the site - but I had to chuckle over Chrome’s “Your connection is not private” page:
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So much disappointment:
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Wouldn’t it be longer if they used only W's? 
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If I make a URL shortener for this, am I missing the point?
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Same amount of characters, yet “mine” (I didn’t register anything, I have nothing to gain by proving I have… the longest… anything…) is clearly longer, when written in a script that has variable letter width:
VS
Edited to add: It seems the max with for a BBS post is also 63 octets (whatever the F a octet is) since all the dot’s in my suggested name nicely line up with the end of the post 
Edited again to comment on the previous edit: Obviously that is not how it works, this is just a coincidence since the BBS uses variable letter width, which I already knew of course…
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There is already a URL shortener on the page itself. I don’t know if you’d be missing the point, but you would definitely be revealing that you did not read the article visit the website. 
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The domain name registered is:
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.me
The URL below is (tied for being one of) the longest possible URLs.
http://a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i.j.k.l.m.n.oo.pp.qqq.rrrr.ssssss.tttttttt.uuuuuuuuuuu.vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv.wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.me/
I think the claim should be “URL of maximum length allowed by a domain name server” (?)
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I hope you mean to use this as the base for a url shortner, so that instead of having to type in bbs.boingboing.net, for example, we could just type in:
http://a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i.j.k.l.m.n.oo.pp.qqq.rrrr.ssssss.tttttttt.uuuuuuuuuuu.vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv.wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.me/theBoingBoingBBSCommunity
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TL;DR 
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You are right that the subdomains are usually not counted as part of the domain name.
However, URL is a different term again, and this is not the maximum allowed URL length, the part behind the TLD (.com, .me, etc) can easily make the URL twice as long again. I believe the part we are talking about here, including the subdomains but excluding the “on the server path”, is called the hostname.
I couldn’t easily find any data on a standard accepted max length for a URL, the limits for this can be found in web browsers (I assume most modern ones are no longer limited in any meaningful way) and in web servers.
This page (via the webarchive) from 2006 recommends staying safe by staying within a 2.000 character limit: https://web.archive.org/web/20120419143749/http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/misc/urllength.html
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