In search of the perfect URL

Xvideos uses the same technique to good effect as well. All of their videos links follow the format:

www xvideos com/videoNNNNNNN/description_of_activity_which_can_be_easily_updated (NSFW)

I wanted to mention a mystery concerning Xvideos. Here's a business that is very much in-your-face (i.e. it is not a defense contractor or an organization that wants to be discreet), but its ownership is totally unknown.

I researched it. There are literally zero articles or information about who owns it. No interviews with the founders. Nothing. I haven't been able to even figure out what country it's based in.

Somewhere out there is a very rich person whose family and friends probably don't realize that he founded a major Internet business.

Yes, a major Internet business: they have several million videos (far more than competing "tube" sites), hundreds or thousands of fast servers, and an Alexa rank of 47 which is higher than imdb.com and only a couple steps below microsoft.com.

But in this age of little privacy, they've managed to be super private.

I thought this was fairly common knowledge.

Using a DB PKID is a faster lookup than a text slug and uses much less storage space in the DB.

For SEO / URL permanence reasons, the PKID is always the authoritative key while the slug can be updated to represent the current content of the URL.

my battle-proven URL rules. important: rule 1 is more important then rule 2 to 6 added up, rule nr 2 is more important than rule 3 to 6 totaled, rule 3 is more important than 4 to 6 together, rule 4 is more important than 5 + 6, rule 5 and rule 6 are a tradeoff (it's short, not shortest possible URL).

the targeted phrase is term(s) you want to get found for (i.e.: in google search)

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 (measurable, 1 logic per site section, no complicated exceptions, no exceptions)

URL-Rule 4: easily scalable logic

URL-Rule 5: short

URL-Rule 6: with a variation of the targeted phrase

most common mistake, rule 6 (least important) invalidates rule 1 (most important)

i stand with these url-rules, evertime you compromise on them - or change the priority in between the url-rules, you - your company/startup/business/website/webapp - will regret it in the longterm.

about: >This is the sort of solution that I really like. The SEO folks can fiddle with the URL until the cows come home, the engineers have the luxury of a straightforward rule, and the user never sees a broken link. Is this simple structure enough to keep everybody happy?

NO

every redirect has a cost:

- server ressources

- (web)performance a.k.a. speed

- long term project costs: redirects needs to be maintained (they will not) and documented (they are not)

- added complexity (redirect complexity add up fast, more info see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8891553 )

Surely, a correct canonical URL will prevent this from happening.

Or simply http://amzn.com/0262510871