Slightly OT about urls

[Roger]

On 09/12/2012 11:37 PM, Tim wrote:
> On Wed, 2012-09-12 at 09:34 +1000, Roger wrote:
>> On the server we have a redirection in index.php so that calling url
>> www.domain.org.au in browser displays www.domain.org.au/directory.
>> Is there any way to get the url to not display the /directory, just
>> the url?
> That's generally a bad idea, because you destroy navigation.  The user
> cannot see where they are, as they move through a site, and get rapidly
> annoyed with websites that don't work sensibly.  And the browser can't
> navigate back and forth, when the URI stays the same.
>
In this particular case it would be  handy if the url remained constant. 
All the viewer needs to know is the base url.  I'm thinking that 
subdirectory displays could be irrelevant.
Maybe I'm completely wrong here. I'm no expert in urls and navigation.

I would have thought that the user/viewer knows exactly where they are 
because they have typed in an easily recognisable base url and selected 
from a small menu list.
Resultant page/s tell them what they are viewing and where to go next. 
Basically all a browser has to do is change to the selected menu item. 
Maybe it won't do that if the base url is static, I don't know.

I'm uncertain that urls actually matter to the viewer, I browse hundreds 
of sites/pages over a year and note that many become acutely complex, 
excessively large and don't fit in the display field. These are 
definitely an annoyance, a waste of space and in such cases, of meaning 
only to the site developer. I could not envisage a user/viewer typing in 
a url with several subdirectories and the last so convoluted and complex 
that proficient typist would have difficulty.

I concede that the base url idea may not work on many sites where 
complex, convoluted, enormous, poorly considered menus on both sides of 
the page are the norm.
Thanks anyway
Roger




Roger