View source for Clean (Human-Readable) URLs

[[Category: Navigation]]
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_URL Clean URLs] on Wikipedia explains that clean URLs are intended to improve the usability and accessibility of a website or web service by being immediately and intuitively meaningful to non-expert users.
* [https://www.nngroup.com/articles/url-as-ui/ URLs as UI] by Nielsen Norman Group describes what good clean URLs consist of and some of the reasons why you want to have them, all the way back in 1999. 
* [https://www.freshconsulting.com/ui-ux-principle-5-dont-forget-ux-of-navigation-urls/ UI/UX Principle #5: Don't Forget UX of Navigation and URLs by Jeff Dance of Fresh goes into more detail than the NNG article about the benefits of clean URLs.
* [https://alistapart.com/article/urls/ URLs! URLs! URLs!] on A List Apart describes one way to rewrite URLs using .htaccess files
* [https://alistapart.com/article/succeed/ How to succeed with URLs] on A List Apart describes a second way using php

In short, the URL is the very first form of navigation that many users and search engines identify about a page. It provides [[A Sense of Place]]. I tells both the human and the machine, "this is what's here, this is the hierarchy of the site, and this is how you get to the thing."