Ok i took some time and elaborated my view on this:
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Reasons for why Clean URLs are a fundamental part of modern Web Development and why Silverstripe should seriously consider implementing such a feature.
Search Engine Ranking
Although the science of SEO is somewhat obscure there are a numerous SEO experts pointing out that the use of clean URLs does improve your search engine ranking. A reason for this is that search keywords are <strong>bolded</strong> out in search result URLs which evidently will increase readability for a user scanning through for keywords. As a result she is more likely to click it. An URL listed as “mysite.com/articles/planting_a_tree/†would appear more credible than for example: mysite.com/?s=214&a=00001242
The use of clean URLs also have a great deal of importance in terms of good usability in terms of URL “hackability†and versatility. Moving from “mysite.com/articles/planting_a_tree†to “mysite.com/articles†is very usable because people without understanding for how the web is built will still get some kind of understanding of the websites structure. A clean URL is versatile because it's easier to remember, write down, use for print(on a flyer for example) and find again, if you lose it.
The problem Silverstripe faces
I guess that it would be fair to say that Silverstripe has a simpler implementation of clean URLs which is a step in the right direction, but should consider making it fully implemented.
Having to explain to our clients that they have to custom hack the meta-data URLs in the cms to make them logical in an SEO and usability perspective is NOT convenient.
A structural example of this could be a company that has offices in three different cities, every city with three subpages: Contact, Employees, Events. A logical structure could be:
/office
-----/stockholm
----------/staff
----------/contact
----------/events
-----/gothenburg
----------/staff
----------/contact
----------/events
and so on...
If a client created these pages through the cms the subpages would come out something as “/staffâ€Â, “/staff-2â€Â, “/contactâ€Â, “/contact-2â€Â. There's not a chance on earth we could convince client that they would have to custom hack every each of the sub-pages meta data to create at least a somewhat logical URL, it's bad enough having to convince them to learn a CMS in the first place ;)
Our conclusion: This is really a pitfall and a show stopper, and we wont be able to use it for production.
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Sources:
http://www.mc2design.com/blog/why-you-should-or-should-not-use-clean-urls