I don't really see how Twitter's URL scheme of http://twitter.com/#!/shabda is a 'good' URL. The scheme they had before, without the #! was much better, is #! not unneeded info?

@Daniel: The #! or as it is called shebang is necessary in twitter's case to get their pages indexed by Google.

Here's more: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3009380/whats-the-shebang-in-facebook-and-new-twitter-urls-for

Daniel: Same as sushi. It is needed, if you are building a Ajax Appp, which loads these urls without page load.

Having "http://stackoverflow.com/jquery-handle-keypress-for-list" instead of "http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4352854/jquery-handle-keypress-for-list" would not work because the title can be edited. The back-end only requires "http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4352854". Everything beyond that point is ignored. The remainder of the URL is there to make it easier for humans to have a clue what the page is about before going there.

it is an unfortunate shortcoming in Javascript that you cannot populate the address bar with a full URL without initiating a page reload, unless you make use of anchor hashes, which is why on sites that make extensive use of AJAX like facebook and twitter you see hashes in all the url strings.

It's the only way to provide deeplinking on an AJAX driven site.

Andrew:

How WordPress handles is it. If my old url was:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4352854/jquery-handle-keypress-for-list

And I edit title, so slug is,

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4352854/jquery-dojo-handle-keypress-for-list

WordPress will set a HTTP 301 from Old to New. I believe this would be the correct behavior.

Al I agree, thats why I have said

http://twitter.com/#!/shabda is a perfect URL.

shabda: you wrote that you would like "http://stackoverflow.com/jquery-handle-keypress-for-list". I'm trying to point out that that doesn't work so well. If the name changes then yes, you'll need a permanent redirect from the old URL to the new, and that is possible. The server would have to keep track of all previous title changes and know how to redirect. But then, what happens if I asked "X" then changed it to "Y" and later on you ask "X" then change it to "Z". If someone goes to an old bookmark for "X", do they mean to see Y or Z?

That's why your proposed better solution does not work. While what SO does not only works, it's less work for the back-end at the cost of a few extra digits in the URL.

(There's also some technical details of namespace collision, like what happens if I ask a question "users"? Will it mean that http://so/users" goes to my question instead of the list of users? This can be handled technically.)

Since you mentioned about those new Twitter URLs which allow easy ajax indexing by Google, I thought you might like to take a look at this: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-allow-google-to-crawl-ajax-content

If browsers other than Chrome supported window.history.pushState there wouldn't be the need for the #! trick for urls.

A downside I see from the github case of perfect urls (github.com/Spacelog) is that you loose control of your namespace. It becomes hard to know which reserved words you have and which not, github.com/about github.com/login etc. I would have used a namespace github.com/users/Spacelog but it makes it longer :S.

What's with the #! on twitter?

Q

Thanks for this nice wrap-up. I have a question: Why do you suggest using unique urls? Is that bad for what reason?

For all those wondering about the #! in the URL, it is placed to help search engine bots crawl AJAX content.

Check http://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/docs/getting-started.html

Our website offers the Cheap Rosetta Stone on sale,such as these very popular kinds: Rosetta Stone Spanish,Rosetta Stone German,Rosetta Stone Italian and so on,besides,there are many friendly customers who left useful Rosetta Stone Reviews,which maybe the good guide for you!
All the Rosetta Stone are 100% satisfaction guaranteed,and free shipping.We guarantee its quality,and all money will be refund if the goods are not satisfied.
welcome to make a purchase.

Hi shabda, i like your post and also want to share some more things as in case of seo friendly url writing. We have to always use relevant url according to our business and have to use dash instead of slash and we can use maximum 5 to 6 words in inner page url. Hope these few tips would be beneficial to all of us:-)

Experiments in url design - http://bit.ly/eIUJ1f - [Hacker News FH]

Good, Bad & UGLY URLs -> http://agiliq.com/blog/2010/12/experiments-in-url-design/

Experiments in URL design. http://agiliq.com/blog/2010/12/experiments-in-url-design/

shabda: Experiments in URL design. http://agiliq.com/blog/2010/12/experiments-in-url-design/: http://bit.ly/gf5cy5