There’s nothing like the topic of “URL structure” to really get your adreneline pumping on a Monday morning, right? Alright, so perhaps it’s not the first thing on your mind, but it’s an important part of a website readesign project!
We were recently asked if URLs will be changing during the site transition. Although some of the department and office URLs may change during the transition, we will work to setup redirects so that users don’t experience “not found” issues when we transition.
We also reached out to our experts at Mighty to weigh in on URL best practices:
When thinking about the URL structure for our new site, keep in mind that, in general, good URLs are relatively easy for human beings to read, understand, and type. URLs that make semantic sense are also easier to email, memorize, share, and guess, and positively influence SEO.
If we follow these five “rules” we should be in good shape:
- Use natural language (avoid shorthand and abbreviations)
- Separate words with dashes (not underscores or spaces)
- Use lowercase
- Avoid query parameters unless needed
- Avoid file extensions