Url patterns, what do you prefer?

[cedivad]

news.php?id=123456
news/123456/
news/123456-news-title/
news/2010/5/news-title/
site.com/nUfed7dA (where the first n stands for News, Ufed7dA is the parameter)

I think the last one is the best. Simply because it will stay the same for years.

 

[Forsaken]

I'd prefer news/news-title-123456/ or something similar.

 

[Disjunto]

I like how XF has it at the moment. the URL makes sense to read, and it doesn't have excessive / and the title+id separator isn't used anywhere within the title

 

[Brandon_R]

I like how XF has it at the moment. the URL makes sense to read, and it doesn't have excessive / and the title+id separator isn't used anywhere within the title

Same here.

 

[Shamil]

The current XF implementation means the most to me.

 

[Steffi]

I like how XF has it at the moment. the URL makes sense to read, and it doesn't have excessive / and the title+id separator isn't used anywhere within the title

Same here.

 

[0ptima]

I like the way XF does it.

 

[Lost]

The XF implementation kind of grew on me.

 

[Onimua]

I prefer the way XF has it as well. I never particularly liked /234/567/title or odd combinations of it. The only time I didn't mind that was for blogs or news articles that I could tell the date by the URL (2008/6/16).

 

[erich37]

as long as Google is able to read the URL, I do not care how it looks like...

 

[Blackbeard]

site.com/nUfed7dA

 

[cedivad]

site.com/nUfed7dA

Well, i'm not alone =)
Who is the one that looks like an astronaut?

 

[Twisted Mentat]

Out of those options I like the third the most but I've come across one that's pretty much the same that I think is even better.

news/123456/news-title/

Then you can adjust the news-title to whatever you want or ditch it all together if you need shortness.

As an example the Stuff news website in NZ uses that format. So the following three urls all point to the same story.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4026016/Mailbox-rule-a-low-blow-says-outraged-resident
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4026016/Short-One
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4026016/

 

[Danny.VBT]

I like the third one too. In fact, I am not a big fan of XF's current URL structure. The argument that we read left to right is a moot point considering that the title is now wedge in the middle of the domain and ID/Request parameters.

It's much easier, for me atleast, to focus on the end of a string to get the relevant title.

 

[Twisted Mentat]

And a small update. After reading up on the XF url structure I did a quick test and it works in the same way I described for stuff. The following urls will point to the same thread.

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/.2098/
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/2098/ If you're throwing in just the ID it seems the '.' isn't important.
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/url-patterns-what-do-you-prefer.2098/
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/short-one.2098/

 

[pk698]

The way XF displays it right now seems ideal to me. It just seems better suited for SEO.

 

[Blackbeard]

I want short url's. long urls gave business to bit.ly and the such. Great services...just trying to cut out the middle man.

 

[feldon30]

site.com/nUfed7dA

SEO friendly doesn't have to mean user hostile. That URL has little meaning to a user and cannot be distinguished from any other thread URL when viewed in a list.

 

[cedivad]

That is not seo friendly.