Best way to format pretty URLs for numeric IDs

Question

Alright, so let's say I'm writing a forum application, and I want pretty URLs. However, all my tables use numeric IDs, so I'm not sure the best way to format the URLs for those resources. Let's pretend I'm trying to get a topic with ID 123456 and title This is a forum post. I've seen it done a couple ways:

1. www.example.com/topic/123456
2. www.example.com/topic/this-is-a-forum-post
3. www.example.com/topic/123456/this-is-a-forum-post

Which one would you say is, taking all things into consideration (including SEO), the optimal URL?

Sorry if this question is too vague, but it seems programming-related and it's not incredibly open-ended, as I just want to hear the pros and cons of each method.

Answer 1

For SEO/traffic, definitely no.2 without a doubt. Get those meaningless numbers out of the URL every single time.

www.example.com/topic/this-is-a-forum-post

pickup the "this-is-a-forum-post" from your database and map it back to the ID number within your database via a query. Then do an internal URL re-write to the real page, something like /topic.php?ID=324342

Answer 2

I'll go for the first one. You know it really doesn't matter now. Since there are Long URLs converter and it will just proliferate and will become the norm in the future. Remember the longer your URL the less SEO points you'll get.

And you can't control the way people name their forum topics. So really, I'll just choose the first one for simplicity and the norm.

Answer 3

I would think that the 2nd URL would be the best for SEO since it is meaningful and has less depth. It's nicer for people as well since you can look at the URL and know what the content is about.

Answer 4

I would go with option 2, as SEO can better understand.

Stack Overflow uses the third way, probably, that is the reason, Stack Overflow urls were not optimized for SEO. I am not sure in the above answer.

But In my experience with Google, Quite Often, I could see a solution from other forums, whereas stackoverflow solutions were almost invisible.

Best way to format pretty URLs for numeric IDs Best way to format pretty URLs for numeric IDs

if the both urls were one and the same, the SEO simply goes with option 2, which is less optimized.

Answer 5

Stackoverflow seems to using pattern 3, with the title being ignored completely (just the id is used).

That makes for nice semantic URL, and is also easy to implement, and still works if the title changes later.

Of course, the title could be completely fake:

Best way to format pretty URLs for numeric IDs

Answer 6

URL 1 is definitely suboptimal. URL 2 is attractive but you run the risk of confusion if tags collide, especially if they differ only in punctuation. So I'd say URL 3 is the clear winner.

Also note that just because you display URL 3 is no reason not to accept all 3, with the other two redirecting. If URL 2 is ambiguous, it should redirect to a disambiguation page.