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Top 3 reasons to use clean URLs
check out our new article about what we learned from being dugg »
I get asked a lot about clean URLs. Most times the question is, "Why should I use clean URLs when building my web app?" And so, with that, I give you the CenterNetworks Top 3 Reasons to use clean URLs when building your web app:
Reason 1: Virality
When you see someone in the street and want to give them a URL inside your site, would you say something like (click the audio for real world example):
- reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6648315.html?tag=cnetfd.mt
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab"> type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" />
- cnet.com/firefox0dayhoax
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab"> type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" />
I am pretty sure it is the latter. It is important that people can speak your URLs where ever possible. Of course it is important to remember that this list is appropriate for those starting out. When you look at a site like CNET that has been around for years, changing their URL structure would be very difficult.
I use the MOM test when creating URLs…. if my mother understands the URL then I go with it.
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Reason 2: Optimization
Search engines like clean URLs. And we all know how important good search engine rankings are. But you will see I did not call reason #2 – search engine optimization. And why? Because optimization of a web site (or its URLs) is more than just for SEO purposes. There are many social bookmarking sites today that only let you save the URL and a description. Wouldn't it be nice if the description was in the URL?
Reason 3: Show Off Your Dopeness
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When you use clean URLs you say to the rest of the web apps world, "we know wtf we are doing." Otherwise you could be considered just another geek with a site. Why not be considered cool? Why not be considered dope? Well use clean URLs and you can! And there are no Surgeon General's warnings on the package! Imagine for a second… a T-Shirt that says "got clean URLs?" Would be the hit of the Web 2.0 meetups!
Conclusion
The bottom line is that today it is very easy to create clean URLs. Every web server software can handle them and they help big time. Whether you use Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, Moveable Type or create your own application, clean URLs have never been easier to use!
One important note – PLAN YOUR URL STRUCTURE – whether you use clean or dynamic – it is imporant to create a structure that will work today and in the future. What you don't want is to run out of usable URLs in the first year of business. Create a plan and reap the rewards.
I have written an article about some ways to make urls beatiful. It’s good for newbies, but maybe some pros will find it interesting too.
My site is generally in Russian, but here is a direct link to english version of an article:
http://rmc.net.ru/eng/goodurl/
New link is
http://rmc.net.ru/article/eng/goodurl/
The url should be short and creative.
What … no mention of
mod_rewrite?
Mod_rewrite is Apache specific, but yeah, “rewrite rules” in general can do a lot. One should take into account that they can be pretty intense on the serverside.
I heard “talking URLs” are pretty good for SEO as well, anyone got more info on that?
The easiest way to do this is in apache is with Multiviews.
Ya! Mod_Rewrite is great; heres an article I found from Google: http://www.allsyntax.com/tutorials/Apache/21/Mod_Rewrite-URLs-for-Search-Engines/1.php
Mod_rewrite can be used to do many of these things. Great article BTW!
If anyone is interested, I wrote an article on mod_reqwrite a couple of weeks ago:
Mod rewrite tricks
nice little comment, but it would have been nice if you had included at least a snippet of the modrewrite rule(s) you are using. :)
PS> are you from NY, Jersey, or neither?
NYC – Go Yankees!
Clean URLs are the future (and should have been the past). While mod_rewrite is nice, I find a different approach to solve this problem and kill one potential server bottleneck: Make your CMS (or whatever exactly you want to call it) write static HTML pages. Only overwrite those pages when the content changes (i.e. a new post or a comment). Since page views are more common than page changes, building the HTML on changes makes more sense than building the HTML on views. Plus you can actually create the nice directory structure that your clean URLs hint at!
Dope. Dope. Dope.
Wow. Excellent use of the word dope. But you forgot other stupid slang. Like, you should use mackin’ URLs. And this URL is word to your mother. Or this URL is funky fresh.
:P
1. When you see someone on the street and want to give them the URL to your site … it better be a domain name, period. Anything more will be too long/no worth the effort to write down. This is not an argument.
2. Search engine optimization is a complex topic that has a lot more to it than ‘keeping clean’ your URLs.
3. There are legitimate reasons for using complex URLs, such as backwards compatibility, cookieless sessions, etc.
Really, none of the arguments you present take anything more than aesthetics into account.
You say that like aesthetics don’t matter. They matter greatly in the real world.
Also note he explicitly mentioned “Not just search engine optimization” thus making your counterargument 2 worthless.
I’ve been doing this in my website, my first reason is for SEO. I find that creating static page ‘html’ using dynamic programming langguage are effective. The static page are dynamic but it’s still static for user and search engine :)
Hackability is just as important. Predictable, hackable URL schemes invite intelligent re-use of web resources – both for regular web sites and web service APIs. ‘Don’t make me think’, all that. :)
Ed – I can't say that I disagree with you, but at the same time, I am not crazy about adding the date to a url. To me it can be a good thing and a bad thing… It can make people think "this content is out of date, I am not even going to visit that link" and from that standpoint it is a negative.
Of course your reasoning is very valid as a site grows. I can only hope that CN will eventually outgrow its url conventions. But with n² possibilities, I don't see that happening too quickly.
But I will talk about it with the team to see if it makes sense here.
…it is imporant to create a structure that will work today and in the future….
Include some of the date in the URL so then you can reorganise and keep compatibility while still keeping the URLs pretty clean. E.g.:
http://www.centernetworks.com/2006/10/top-3-reasons-to-use-clean-urlsBecause you only have to be unique within the month you can also abbreviate a bit more:
http://www.centernetworks.com/2006/10/clean-urlsCould you setup a system where the url after the domain is actualy a search term? Say I was looking for this article, instead of having to exactly match the url I could enter http://www.domain.com/clean+url. If there was one match, show it, if more, then show a list of options.