What is the difference in URLs called?

[BubbaLovesCheese]

I've noticed a difference in the URLs on this xenforo forum.

Some URLs are just words - ie - /announcements/ and /have-you-seen/

Some other URLs are followed by a number - ie - /xenforo-pre-sales-questions.5/

I'm familiar with the numbers being in the URL from vBulletin, but I'm not sure what the term is, or if it is a feature of xenforo, to not have numbers?

Could someone please clarify this for me?

Thank you!

 

[TickTackk]

Some URLs are just words - ie - /announcements/ and /have-you-seen/

That's controlled via the "URL portion" setting in forum edit page. Something similar can be achieved with route filter as well.

Some other URLs are followed by a number - ie - /xenforo-pre-sales-questions.5/

This is how most XenForo specific URL would look.

 

[BubbaLovesCheese]

Thank you.

Is there an advantage/disadvantage for using either method?

 

[Chris D]

There is minimal difference. Some will say that the number being in the URL is impactful to SEO. Honestly these days it would be negligible difference if any at all.

So I’d say there’s not a down side to keeping the URLs default but if you decide to change the URL portion the downside is if you ever wanted to change that URL portion in the future then it would break existing URLs and you would have to manually redirect them.

The default URLs will always work as long as they have their numeric ID in them. Even if the title of the forum changes, the .5 in the URL is what we use to locate the correct forum.

/I-CAN-TYPE-ANYTHING-HERE.5/

Redirects to:

/xenforo-pre-sales-questions.5/