If those hierarchical directories actually work, i.e. http://example.com/blog/2022/05 actually lists blog entries written in May 2022, I'd certainly prefer that to this type of "optimization".
Short URLs: Why and How
101–110 of 172 posts
Re: Short URLs: Why and How
#102don't do that
and don't do hierarchical URLs also
this are my battle-proven URL rules. whenever i violated them and changed the priority I regretted it.
URL-rules
URL-Rule 1: unique (1 URL == 1 resource, 1 resource == 1 URL)
URL-Rule 2: permanent (they do not change, no dependencies to anything)
URL-Rule 3: manageable (equals measurable, 1 logic per site section, no exceptions)
URL-Rule 4: easily scalable logic
URL-Rule 5: short
URL-Rule 6: with a variation (partial) of the targeted phrase
the URL yoursite.com/short violated rule number 3. lets say you have list pages, category pages, tag pages, database generated pages, post pages .... now say you change your listpages, in design, in how they look, you want to know if they now work better (for whatever metrik you care about or not), well good luck with that. either you create a regex of hell for GA or whatever tool you are using or just a spreadsheet.
or you do example.com/l/short for list pages, example.cm/a/super-short for article pages, now easy to measure and manage.
also dont do example.com/category-name/article as all hierarchies are imperfect and change over time (there is no permanent or perfect hierarchy over time) so any kind of hierarchy violates URL rule number 2.
use %namespaces%, these are one or two letter words which identify the pagetype (listpage, article page) (note: pagetype defined as "share the same or very similar process on how the page gets created, changing the template or process of the pagetype, changes all pages under this pagetype)
i usually end up with
https://www.example.com/%pagetype namespace%/%permanent identifier i have under total control%/ or
https://www.example.com/%country or language namespace%/%pageytpe namespace%/%permanent identifier i have under total control%/ for multimarket and/or multilanguage webproperties
you can download my book for free here if you like https://gumroad.com/l/understanding-seo/hacker-news I go in a bit more detail there.
Re: Short URLs: Why and How
#103I own a 3-letter domain with a 2-letter TLD and still spells my family name. Many of my friends finds it cool when I share links via that domain. The links are indeed easy to remember but it comes at a higher yearly cost of renewal and I had forgotten to renew twice. Luckily, I was able to re-register them (nobody wants it, ;-)). Example https://oin.am/rr/
Sadly http://merl.in has been idle for the past 10+ years, and I have not been able to get in touch with the owners...
My name is Justus, and I had my eye on https://just.us for years. It was just the photo gallery for a couple’s 60th anniversary dance.
I checked every year on the expiry date to see if they renewed. Every year they did.
One year I forgot to check and now the domain is parked and for sale for $288k.
Re: Short URLs: Why and How
#104I own a 3-letter domain with a 2-letter TLD and still spells my family name. Many of my friends finds it cool when I share links via that domain. The links are indeed easy to remember but it comes at a higher yearly cost of renewal and I had forgotten to renew twice. Luckily, I was able to re-register them (nobody wants it, ;-)). Example https://oin.am/rr/
My name’s Corlin and I own corl.in I sign up for accounts with emails like apple@corl.in and that lets me easily filter and organize my inbox. But when I have to tell some customer service rep my email they get very confused.
I deal with this by reversing the brandname, or coming up with some other code. So long as it's unique per signup, I can trace back anyway.
Re: Short URLs: Why and How
#105No post body was provided.
Re: Short URLs: Why and How
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to have a mail address along the lines of d@nblows.com But beware, single letter local parts are not universally supported by web sites. Microsoft accounts with those mail addresses are possible (they used to be impossible), but recently I stumbled upon two other web sites that didn't like single letter local parts.
I use an email address with a single-letter username (m@...) and have never had a problem with services rejecting it. The only problem is that rarely when I sign up for a service using a random password like gAdlzIBVom4j3Paf, it tells me "your password cannot contain your username" because it contains the letter "m". Hah!
Good old security theatre
Re: Short URLs: Why and How
#107Re: Short URLs: Why and How
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sadly http://merl.in has been idle for the past 10+ years, and I have not been able to get in touch with the owners...
My name is Justus, and I had my eye on https://just.us for years. It was just the photo gallery for a couple’s 60th anniversary dance. I checked every year on the expiry date to see if they renewed. Every year they did. One year I forgot to check and now the domain is parked and for sale for $288k.
If it is any consolation they probably used a bot to pick it up and you would have been beaten to it unless you were going to use a bot.
Re: Short URLs: Why and How
#109I own a 3-letter domain with a 2-letter TLD and still spells my family name. Many of my friends finds it cool when I share links via that domain. The links are indeed easy to remember but it comes at a higher yearly cost of renewal and I had forgotten to renew twice. Luckily, I was able to re-register them (nobody wants it, ;-)). Example https://oin.am/rr/
Another happy owner here of a 3-letter domain with a 2-letter TLD: rio.hn. I can spell my name, Dario, as d@rio.hn. Lots of people laughs when they realize it's my name, they find it clever.
Especially on HN!
Re: Short URLs: Why and How
#110I do think this is a good idea in some situations, but the author doesn't get into the advantages of the style they dislike. Let's look at that path:
/blog/2022/05/08/short-urls-why-and-how.html
Personally, I find putting the title of the post (but not the date) in the path is a good compromise:
/short-urls-why-and-how