What is the best column type for URL?

Question

What is the best column type for a URL field for SQL Server?

Type: VARCHAR or NVARCHAR?

Length?

Similar question for MySQL.

Answer 1

Will you be storing multilingual URLs? If so, use nvarchar, otherwise use varchar.

Edit: As for length, since IE limits URLs to being 2,083 characters you could use that as the maximum length of your field. In cases like these you want to use the lower common denominator as your URLs should be usable in all browsers. Really this is a practical cap on a field that most likely will never contain data the will get anywhere close to even IE's limits.