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by endlessvoid94 5348 days ago
HPs urls are terrible: http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/iss/110111.aspx
4 comments

I presume they use the urls to generate computer names. Have you ever heard of:

HP EliteBook 2760p

HP EliteBook 8560w

No kidding. Clearly they're using IIS, which has the equivalents of mod_rewrite built-in. Why would they keep using such awful URLs? The only other major company still using cruft like that I can think of is IBM. Totally unnecessary.
At least with Amazon, all you need is: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003O6G5TW

Which isn't too bad...

Luckily, everything from /ref= on is optional, and the alphanumeric code that comes after product is an actual product code. Replace it with the 9-digit ISBN for a book, and you'll get the book, for example.
That's intentional. They'd rather not give out a bunch of Google Accounts usernames (which would also be a lot of Gmail users).
Terrible URLs? Yes; they are.

For this product, http://hp.com/go/moonshot works

Off-topic, but seriously no one except self-important webdevs gives a toss about URLs. They're addresses, not literature.

That URL looks fine to me.

Yeah, bullshit semantic/SEO cargo cult.