Urls: Guidelines, background and proposal

Owned by Paul Seiler (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Aug 13, 2015
5 min read

Guidelines

In reading various sets of guidelines on ulrs I often found reference to the value in sticking with convention. In other words, in all parts of the site be consistent , stick to your URL guidelines, etc. This makes things easier for users (and future developers), as they will have a clear idea of how content is organized into folders and pages. This can apply globally as well for sites that share platforms, brands, etc.

I have been unable to find any guidelines so have collected the following suggestions from various sites.

  • Always write for humans first. 

    • And by extension allocate the best/ shorter urls to benefit the most customers. This would mean promoting topic pages ahead of faculties and schools (e.g. www.victoria.ac.nz/law to take you to the topic page not to the faculty.

  • Describe your content. An obvious URL is a great URL. If a user can look at the Address bar (or a pasted link) and make an accurate guess about the content of the page before ever reaching it, you've done your job. These URLs get pasted, shared, emailed, written down, and yes, even recognized by the engines.

  • Keep it short. The shorter the URL, the easier to copy & paste, read over the phone, write on a business card, or use in a hundred other unorthodox fashions, all of which spell better usability & increased branding. Avoid less important words (e.g. a, the, for , our, as, etc)

  • Only use lower case.

  • Use keywords. Important ones first, not too many (3–5 keywords for file names with a maximum of 50–60 characters to avoid lengthy URLs), do not repeat words for section and sub-section.

  • To avoid confusion for both visitors and search engines, keywords for folders and file names should be separated with a hyphen. The plus symbol (plus) and underscore (_) are options but not recommended.

  • Aim to keep pages closer to the root domain as crawlers assign more relevance to pages higher in the directory structure. This means fewer folders. A URL should contain no unnecessary folders (or words or characters for that matter), for the same reason that a man's pants should contain no unnecessary pleats. The extra fabric is useless and will reduce his likelihood of impressing potential mates.

Example guidelines

The following examples might help VUW develop their own

 

Subjects and topics

Background

In moving from a subject page to topic page approach it is useful to remind ourselves how subject pages are currently named. I had expected a high level of consistency, both within and between faculties, even if we planned to change things moving forward. What I fould was anything but consistent, which is why I have documented so many examples.

Here is an example for accounting and actuarial science, both subjects from the Victoria Business School. It shows differences between subjects within a faculty, the old subjects use Banner course code and newer list subject in full with hyphen to denote the space between words:

Here is an example from the Faculty of Science, this time for biology and electronic computer systems. Consistent within the faculty but different paths between faculties.

And another Chinese and political science from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, showing the challenge when there are composite majors used for a subject page:

Law place the programme name where others place the subject:

Network engineering in the Faculty of Engineering:

Proposal

I propose that we follow:

  • For topic pages (and megatopics if they need addresses): /study/[topicname]  An example would be /study/architecture
  • For topic pages written for an international audience: /international/study/[topicname]

 

Programmes

Background

Programmes were no more consistent than subjects, although in the name of efficiency I have documented fewer. I have not From the Faculty of Architecture and Design a Bachelor of Architectural Studies with a specialisation (to be major from 2016) in Interior architecture:

From the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Criminology :

From the Victoria Business School of a Bachelor of Commerce with a major in Economics:

Proposal

I propose that we follow:

  • For UG programme pages: /programme/undergraduate/[programmename]/[majorname]  An example would be /programme/undergraduate/bachelor-arts/greek
  • For programme pages written for an international audience: /international/programme/undergraduate/[programmename]/[majorname]


Courses

Background

Courses are a little different, in that many faculties and schools do not present course information on an addressable web page. Most tend to redirect to Course FInder, which is on Homesite. A few where there are webpages on the faculty or school site are:

From the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences FILM101 Introduction to Film Analysis :

From the Faculty of Architecture and Design SARC101 Design Processes:

From the Faculty of  Engineering ENGR101 Engineering Technology:

From the Faculty of  Law LAWS121 Introduction to New Zealand Legal System :

From the Faculty of Science ESCI201 Climate Change and New Zealand's Future:

Proposal

I propose that we follow:

  • For course pages: /courses/[subjectcode]/[coursenumber]/[year]
    • Where the year parameter is missing default to the most recent year available
  • For course pages written for an international audience: /international/courses/[subjectcode]/[coursenumber]/[year]

 

Faculties and Schools

Background

There is also inconsistency in how both faculties and the schools within them are addressed

Proposal

I propose that we follow:

 

Questions

  1. Will our repeated topic pages (now only geography) be identical in all respects (in which case we can use one url for both instances)? Or will there be different content/links/etc