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Thread: Should URLs be in camel case like hash tags?
Number of posts in this thread: 6 (In chronological order)
From: Barry
Date: Wed, Nov 30 2022 4:27AM
Subject: Should URLs be in camel case like hash tags?
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I know the best practice with hash tags, but cannot find anything useful on
whether or not to camel case URLs for a11y.
Incidentally, is there a WCAG to support camel case hash tags?
Thanks in anticipation.
Cheers
Barry
From: Swift, Daniel P.
Date: Wed, Nov 30 2022 7:01AM
Subject: Re: Should URLs be in camel case like hash tags?
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I remember reading about a year ago that for SEO purposes, Google prefers hyphens to camel case for URLs.
Daniel Swift, MBA
Director of Web Communications
University Communications and Marketing
West Chester University
610.738.0589
From: WebAIM-Forum < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > On Behalf Of Barry via WebAIM-Forum
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2022 6:27 AM
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Cc: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Subject: [WebAIM] Should URLs be in camel case like hash tags?
I know the best practice with hash tags, but cannot find anything useful on
whether or not to camel case URLs for a11y.
Incidentally, is there a WCAG to support camel case hash tags?
Thanks in anticipation.
Cheers
Barry
From: Rowan
Date: Wed, Nov 30 2022 7:46AM
Subject: Re: Should URLs be in camel case like hash tags?
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Most web servers are case sensitive, so:
https://mywebsite.com/pageInCamelCase/
https://mywebsite.com/pageincamelcase/
would effectively be two distinct URLs. The first would return the page
the user wanted. The second would 404. So any advantage in legibility
would be offset by the requirement to get the capitalization right, for
both the user and your developers. You could setup redirect rules, or
allow duplicate pages to be served, but I'd advise not creating the
problem in the first place and sticking with all lowercase, separated by
hyphens (as Daniel advises).
On 30/11/2022 11:27, Barry via WebAIM-Forum wrote:
> I know the best practice with hash tags, but cannot find anything useful on
> whether or not to camel case URLs for a11y.
>
>
>
> Incidentally, is there a WCAG to support camel case hash tags?
>
>
>
> Thanks in anticipation.
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
>
>
> Barry
>
> > > >
From: Steve Green
Date: Wed, Nov 30 2022 7:58AM
Subject: Re: Should URLs be in camel case like hash tags?
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While it is correct that Unix and Linux webservers are case sensitive, in more than 20 years of website testing I don't ever recall seeing a 404 due to incorrect capitalisation of URLs. I did see one instance where different capitalisation resulted in entirely different page content.
Windows webservers are not case sensitive.
Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd
From: Jeremy Echols
Date: Wed, Nov 30 2022 9:08AM
Subject: Re: Should URLs be in camel case like hash tags?
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Probably also worth noting that if you're expecting users to manually enter URLs regularly, you don't want the path (the bit after the domain and first slash) longer than a single word anyway. And even then it would be a poor design choice. The only time I could think of asking users to type in a URL manually would be in a TV or radio ad, and again in those cases you want something very short and simple.
Power users may hack up URLs, but your everyday user should be able to get where they want without typing in a long URL.
Regarding the original question, my gut -- not any information I have, mind, but just my gut -- tells me the URL itself doesn't matter for accessibility purposes. For readability I personally prefer hyphenation between words in a URL path, but hopefully your links are only rarely being seen "raw". And if you do need to share URLs this way, I suspect the same thing applies that I mentioned above, where you want a short URL whenever possible, even if it's just a redirect to something longer.
From: L Snider
Date: Wed, Nov 30 2022 12:09PM
Subject: Re: Should URLs be in camel case like hash tags?
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Great question! The people I know who can't see URLs have never mentioned
this, but now I have to ask as I am curious...One thing I will say is that
you should always look at the URL if it blends together and isn't separated
by hyphens. I just saw a great example of this last week on Instagram with
a handle used, when read together, well it looked like something else! I
can't post it here as it may be flagged!
Cheers
Lisa
On Wed, Nov 30, 2022 at 12:08 PM Jeremy Echols < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Probably also worth noting that if you're expecting users to manually
> enter URLs regularly, you don't want the path (the bit after the domain and
> first slash) longer than a single word anyway. And even then it would be a
> poor design choice. The only time I could think of asking users to type in
> a URL manually would be in a TV or radio ad, and again in those cases you
> want something very short and simple.
>
> Power users may hack up URLs, but your everyday user should be able to get
> where they want without typing in a long URL.
>
> Regarding the original question, my gut -- not any information I have,
> mind, but just my gut -- tells me the URL itself doesn't matter for
> accessibility purposes. For readability I personally prefer hyphenation
> between words in a URL path, but hopefully your links are only rarely being
> seen "raw". And if you do need to share URLs this way, I suspect the same
> thing applies that I mentioned above, where you want a short URL whenever
> possible, even if it's just a redirect to something longer.
>
>