Good practice with URLs

6 January 2009

A brief summary of the importance of paying attention to URL design, drawing on:

Make URLs persistent

Because:

  • Other sites link to them
  • People bookmark them
  • Search engines index them

The core content for a URL should be reasonably static (home and hub pages excluded of course)

Make URLs readable by humans

  • They’re not just in web address bar
  • People can remember them if they’re well designed
  • People can understands them if they’re well designed
  • They are more meaningful
  • If they are well constructed they benefit search engine optimisation

Make URLs hackable

  • They expose a logical structure to the site
  • Supports navigation:
    • Help users orientate in the site
    • Let’s people move up the hierarchy
  • Helps people guess the address of similar resources on the site
  • So:
    • Label consistently
    • Put similar resources at the same level
    • Provide meaningful content at each level of the hierarchy

Entry Filed under: information architecture. Tags: .

1 Comment Add your own

  • 1. Mission Creep | Neil Will&hellip  |  14 January 2009 at 13:47

    [...] Good practice with URLs – A round-up of why managing URLs is not just about avoiding broken links. [...]

    Reply

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