URL for the user profile? to be a subdomain or text after the slash?

Question

Hi guys,

I'm creating an online based system that has public user profiles for all users..

I'm wondering how to organize the URLs for these public user profiles? What could be better for the SEO and of course for the user friendliness?

{username}.mysystem.com

or

mysystem.com/{username}

or maybe even

mysystem.com/users/{username}

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Definitely not a subdomain for SEO Purposes.

I personally prefer the last option mysystem.com/users/{username} as it gives a level of separation from the rest of the application.

This of course requires that {username} is always unique in the database. If it is not (see StackOverflow and the ability to have whatever username you like even if it's taken), then you need to add a Unique Identifier in the url string as well mysystem.com/users/{userID}/{username}

Lastly, if the site ENTIRELY revolves around the user (IE: a blogsite), then you can remove the users from the url string and just go with {username} again providing "username" is unique mysystem.com/{username}

Answer 2

This question has some good answers to that:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/780311/foo-com-alice-vs-foo-com-users-alice