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Andreas Aderhold | 12 Nov 2001 12:27

RE: URL Munging (was: Crazy Links)

Hi Dave,

> So, you get urls like:
> http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/12259
> instead of http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/post.12259

> So, I think that Request should support positional 
> parameters, and not require the dot notation. If 
> you do require named parameters, then I think the 
> dot notation is best choice, overall.

Hmm. Sounds ok, but then we have to agree when to use named parameters
and when not. But I agree that Request should support both.

> Search engine friendly URLs almost always use the 
> forward slash (/) as the argument separator. This 
> is the most user-friendly solution, as this makes 
> dynamic URLs look just like URLs that point to 
> resources in the file system.

Yepp.

> An alternative would be the semicolon, as recommended in 
> the HTML 4 specification: 

This is also nice. I like that. But unless there are no major drawbacks
using /'s I'd vote for /'s

Ok, collecting all this we have the following options that sound
reasonable:

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Sean Pecor | 12 Nov 2001 17:44

Re: URL Munging (was: Crazy Links)

On Monday 12 November 2001 06:27 am, you wrote:
> script.php/foo.bar/doe.john          script.php/bar/john
> script.php/foo.bar.doe.john.html     script.php/bar.john.html
> script.php/foo.bar;doe.john          script.php/bar;john
> I think they are all not "bad" or ugly. The ones that look clean or
> "natural" to me at the first sight are 1+2. The more I think about it
> the more I like the second. Upps, we haven't talked about commas ",". We
> might use them as a seperator:

I'd poke my head in here and mention that #2 is better because:

1. The fewer slashes the better, so that search engines who pay attention 
think the page is closer to the root of the site. In my experience a page 
closer to the root stands a better chance of being indexed, and placing 
higher in the results.

2. The ".html" is again important for search engines. 

3. I don't think commas are highly regarded by search engines. Perhaps no 
better than the query string in that case.

Search engines are near the top of my list of this to consider, if you 
haven't noticed :). 

Sean.

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