Are Dates Really Useful Within URLs?
Jens Meiert, March 11, 2007 / August 21, 2007.
This entry is filed under Web Development, Usability.
Usually dates are a good or even essential thing to include in documents, and that covers both creation and update dates. But, are they really that useful in URLs as well? The reason I ask is that I suspect them to be counterproductive when documents are updated regularly, so that the date might cause the impression that the content is outdated. That’s surely not what a responsible author wants or deserves.
The problem can only partially be addressed by “last update” notes, since they must not affect the corresponding URLs. I guess we cannot generalize this issue (never or always including dates), and maybe I see a problem that’s not even there (for example, when it comes to blogs).
What do you think?
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Comments
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On March 13, 16:28 CET, medyk said:
Dates in URL’s are useful and I think are good practice when they target specific events in time like it is usually with blogs or photo galleries - then chronology is main order factor.
(Even if months after we decided to update pictures in gallery with better scans - they’re “taken date” remains the same so there’s no “update date” collision)In other cases as you say dates may be misleading.
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On March 14, 14:09 CET, Eric said:
I actually see dates in URL’s as sort of a cop-out. Maybe I’m way off here but I always figured it was most blog publishing tools ways of creating *hopefully* unique URL’s by appending a date to make it all the more “unique”. I can also see where they could be very confusing specifically with respect to upcoming events. If you post the event on your site a week in advance of the actual event, the date thats going to be posted (in most blog publishing tools I’ve used) is the current date - not the date of the event. So while your content might say one thing, your URL says another. If someone wants to quickly look to see what the upcoming event’s date is, they might mistakenly think the URL’s date is the correct one. The my $00.02
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On February 10, 13:18 CET, Jens Meiert said:
Well, a few months later I thought about this issue again – and came across Wall’s four reasons to avoid and Slicksurface’s three reasons for using dates in URLs. It probably boils down to a cost of solution vs. cost of problem thing …
