Library Guides: Libguide Libguide: Friendly URLs

Introduction

Friendly URLs are easy for users to remember, are more meaningful than randomised URLs, and provide additional clues for site navigation.

Use hyphens instead of spaces.
Match the terms in the URL to the title of the page.
In RSGs, make sure the subject code is in the main URL.
Write the subject code in uppercase; use lowercase for all other words.
Use breadcrumb-style URLs for different pages by matching the terms in the URL to the page title.
Example: If the page title is Finish, use: /ABC100/finish.

Friendly URLs for LRGs and RSGs

Friendly URLs are required on each page and subpage in multi-page guides. They are not required in LRGs because they are only a single page and the friendly URL for the guide is sufficent.

Examples of friendly-URLs in a Course RSG:

Guide	Page	Subpage	URL example
Engineering RSG			EngineeringRSG
	Get started		EngineeringRSG/get-started
	Search for resources		EngineeringRSG/search
		Advanced search techniques	EngineeringRSG/search/advanced-searching
		Internet, standards and media	EngineeringRSG/search/internet-standards-media
	Evaluate your resources		EngineeringRSG/evaluate
	Writing, referencing and EndNote		EngineeringRSG/writing-referencing-endnote

Changing to Friendly URLs in an older guide

You can update your older guides to make sure they have friendly-URLs, but it's best to do this only if you are changing the original URL and not a friendly-URL. This is because:

a pre-existing link to a page or guide that uses the original URL will still work even after that page has been given a friendly-URL.
a pre-existing link to a page or guide that uses a friendly-URL won't work if the friendly URL has been changed.

So, you can change to friendly-URLs in any guide and be confident that pre-existing links will still work, but you shouldn't change a friendly-URL once its's been allocated.