Why not just use short URLs all the time?

nvr219 · on Jan 31, 2013

Because it's nice to have a URL that is descriptive so I can get an idea of what I'm clicking on before I click on it. Maybe I've just been goatsed too many times...

dergachev · on Jan 31, 2013

In that case, you might enjoy this bookmarklet I made a few weeks ago: http://dergachev.github.com/descriptive-url-bookmarklet/

It automatically extracts the title of the current page and appends it to the URL, like so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-pyuaThp-c#doodling-in-math-... http://ihackernews.com/comments/5043231#hacker-news-mobile-d... https://github.com/dergachev/chrome-xpath-link/issues/2#crea... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5043231#devopssysadmin-c... http://drupal.org/node/1427148#meta-how-should-joke-modules-... https://gist.github.com/4331769#rule-of-thirds-bookmarklet http://bl.ocks.org/4360892#u.s.-airports http://www.redmine.org/issues/12778#defect-12778-upgrade-to-... https://twitter.com/dergachev/status/290914183220981760#twit.... https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdER... https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SOLR-4305#solr-4305-xs... http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/inl/2434325556.html#bes... http://www.flickr.com/photos/54771108@N07/6959604522/#circus...

thesagan · on Jan 31, 2013

I believe clean, understandable URLs also help search engines index content more appropriately (and supposedly helps rankings), but with the speed and opaqueness of exactly how indexing works I could be wrong these days.

Edit: I should have said "...of exactly how search algorithms work..."

eksith · on Jan 31, 2013

I wouldn't mind a short URL if I know where it's actually going. Also, if Twitter is a hint, it's very annoying :

https://twitter.com/eksith/statuses/273585529415680000

gurkendoktor · on Jan 31, 2013

Twitter could make their URLs contain the entire tweet and I would be thankful if they did so, but it doesn't really make sense for them :)

jrochkind1 · on Jan 31, 2013