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URL-Guidelines
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URL-Guidelines
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---
# Do NOT Edit layout
layout: default
#Page info: Edit these items below
title: [URL Standards]
draft: true
---
# URL Standards
The URL of your page specifies its name and location within VA.gov. URLs are a highly visible attribute of your content that impacts user experience, accessibility, and search rankings, so it's important to get it right.
## About URLs
**Static URLs** are the addresses where digital files live. They're called static because they point to static content: content that stays the same each time users access it. Most of VA.gov's content uses static URLs, so we'll be focusing on them.
### Static URLs:
-
- **Consist of:**
-
sub-directories (optional), and a descriptive page name.
- Most of the content on VA.gov uses static URLs, so we'll be focusing on them.
- As a content creator or site builder, you exercise more control over the names of static URLs than dynamic ones.
**Dynamic URLs** also have domains and sub-directories like static URLs, but unlike static URLs, the file names change
A good URL helps users AND search engines by providing:
- A high-level description of what the content is about
- The location of the content within the site
- The relative importance of the content as seen by the site creators. (Closer to domain root = More important)
- Information on how the content is related to other content within your site.
**Good URLs also help people building and revising the website to:**
- Locate the correct files to work on
- Understand where they fit in the website hierarchy, and
- Reduce misundersandings when communicating file names and locations
- *"the 'Five savory soups' article is in 'articles/recipes/five-savory-soups.htm'"* **vs.** "the 'Five savory soups' article is in 'static/misc/cooksrecp19.htm'"
## What makes a good URL?
A good URL should be "[short, descriptive and efficient](https://www.deepcrawl.com/blog/best-practice/guide-to-url-design/)"
### Short
- Use the fewest words and shortest paths you can while keeping the URL scannable
- Ask yourself, "if someone read this to me on the phone, and I couldn't write it down, would I remember it?"
- Keep directory structures wide .
- The farther a page is from the root file directory (everything before the first forward-slash), the lower its search engine ranking.
- But don't try and save space with mashed-up or abbreviated file names.
- If the page title is **"2021 Concert Schedule"** name the file "**2021-performance-schedule**," not **cncrtsched21**, which is neither human nor machine-readable.
- Eight-dot-three filenames and stuck-together word fragments are relics of old-school computing, so don't use them.
### Descriptive
- File names should read like thumbnail page titles, but use hyphens between words instead of spaces.
- When condensing a long title into a short filename, keep the same keywords as title
### Efficient
Any moderately web-savvy person should be able to look at the URL and without radditional information, know:
– Where they are
– What they can do there
– Where they can go from here