Re: Recommended URL structure - pages in the root itself seems latest

On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 12:09 AM, David Woolley <forums@david-woolley.me.uk>
 wrote:

> Ganesh J. Acharya wrote:
>
>> Now days many websites try to use URLs like
>> example.com/car-model-112 <http://example.com/car-model-**112<http://example.com/car-model-112>>
>> like formats, (also this one seems to have lesser accessibility issues.)
>>
>> instead of
>> example.com/suv/car-model-112.**html<http://example.com/suv/car-model-112.html>
>>  <http://example.com/suv/car-**model-112.html<http://example.com/suv/car-model-112.html>>
>> etc
>>
>>
>> What are the recommended URL structures and why?
>>
>
> These are both relative URLs.  I am pretty sure that you actually meant
> these to be //example.com/car-model-112, etc.  It would be strange to
> have something looking like a host name in the local part of the URL.
>
> Can you provide a little more context.  The only time end users should
> see URLs is if they look at the address bar, so these should not appear
> visibly in the body.  From that point of view using a URL that reflects
> the logical structure of the information would seem better, to me.  I
> would further say that //example.com/suv/ should produce a page
> cataloguing all their SUV models, not a message saying directory listing
> not allowed.  However, web sites are so bad at doing this that there is
> no general expectation that it will work.
>
>
But then the problem with logical structure http://example.com/suv/ is,
when more sub categories come into picture to what extent does one add the
subcategories

e.g.

http://example.com/universe/milkyway/earth/us/al/montgomery/Boylston/cook-ave/.../ant-no-126.html

websites like wikipedia have realized this problem and are using
categorization more efficiently via page's link navigation and have not
considered URL based logical structure as it seems impossible at times.



> If a URL is expected to get transcribed into print media, I would
> personally want the scheme prefix included, as well.  I would prefer
> that emailed URLs also didn't omit the scheme.  In fact, I had a recent
> case where my old copy of Thunderbird refused to acknowledge a URL in
> one of the OPs formats, when included in HTML mail.
>
> It is, however, true, that URLs in print, and HTTP ones in email, are
> generally absolute, and browsers make a reasonably good attempt at
> guessing the scheme from other elements of the syntax (although they
> wouldn't be able to distinguish between a sip: and mailto: one, or a
> sip: one without a user part and an http: home page.
>
> Although current browser heuristics will probably work for mailto: and
> http:, I think one is being lazy and relying on undocumented heuristics,
> if one actually relies on that in formal documents.
>
> The .html is really there for technical reasons, and from a human
> accessibility point of view, I don't see a problem in dropping it.
> However, if it is dropped, it becomes even more important to use a
> proper absolute URL format.
>
> Providing the scheme is present, there has never been a real need for
> the domain to start with www.
>
>
> --
> David Woolley
> Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
> RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
> that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work.