Amazon Making URLs More Readable
Just noticed Amazon is making their URLs more readable - a la Wikipedia and dare I say this site - by putting the product’s actual name in the url. Nice change from the less than memorable ASIN.
Compare;
Old: http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B000EPFVAU/
New: http://www.amazon.com/Trading-Up-Consumers-Goods-Companies/dp/B000EPFVAU/
I’ve also notice this in the Kitchen and Housewares category as well.
Knocking the last 2 bits off the latter URL comes up 404, so it looks like the ASIN still needs to be passed.
This is the only Amazon development I’ve seen in a while that I fully support.
3 Comments
A great development. Of course, the old ISBN or moral equivalent still needs to be supported for those of us who are sitting on musty old databases of book titles that need something like a unique identifier. But like you’re saying, it should be an alternative, not an absolute requirement.
Placing keywords in the URL can help with search engine rankings. Amazon’s site is well indexed by search engines, but a tweak like this could help them rank a bit higher for product names.
Excellent point Ed.
Definitely confirming the more usable a website is for people, the more usable it is for robots.