In his latest Alertbox mail out, Jakob Nielsen writes on the importance of using human readable URLs.
For the uninitiated a human readable URL is along the lines of iwilbert.com/posts/jakob-nielsen-on-human-readabl/ whereas iWilbert.com/g/30 is not. Neilson has this to say:
[Users of search engines] are particularly interested in the URL when they are assessing the credibility of a destination.
This finding confirms the importance of human-readable URLs, which I discussed 8 years ago:
> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990321.html
Alertbox email 9-July-2007 (emphasis added)
Fortunately, Neilson has since changed the format of his own URLs, but - perhaps - he should have redirected his former URL a readable version to help make his point.
The latest Alertbox column is 'Write Articles, Not Blog Postings', I'm off to find out how many rules this post has broken.