5 ms·

Google Wants to Kill the URL

52 points by LopRabbit 8y ago

mtgx 8y ago
I wonder what is Google's real reason for this. I have a suspicion it may have something to do with Chrome adding tracking variables to all the URLs you visit, or something along those lines. And they don't want most people to know about it.
- social_quotient 8y ago
  Tracking and AMP abstraction were the first to come to my mind. Without a url you could AMP the desktop experience and just manage the entire experience.
  - walterbell 8y ago
    Google gave a demo where the browser address bar will no longer show the URL of the web server (e.g. Google AMP), it will show the authenticated origin of the Web Package, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16456025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16456025
- vgeek 8y ago
  Shift user behavior from URLs to branded search queries where either the brand pays exorbitant CPMs (low CPC but high CTR, leading to higher earnings per mille than even insurance or law related queries) to protect their branded traffic or risk losing traffic to competitors trademark bidding.
- kart23 8y ago
  After typing something into the firefox search bar, I was greeted by a google captcha that would not let me pass, since I was using a VPN. I then had to punch in duckduckgo.com into the bar to get what I wanted. It was unfamiliar and awkward to not be able to access google to find what I needed. Imagine the url didn't exist, the user would have no way to connect to the internet without going through google. I think Google wants to receive more traffic, collect more data, all while controlling users access to the internet.
dlojudice 8y ago
Reminds me the effort Douglas Crockford was making (still making?) years ago when he was rethinking web infrastructure [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TwrABEAfTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TwrABEAfTk - 7m30s
pferde 8y ago
> But over time, URLs have gotten more and more difficult to read and understand. As web functionality has expanded, URLs have increasingly become unintelligible strings of gibberish combining components from third-parties or being masked by link shorteners and redirect schemes. There's no reason a well-behaved web sire (or application) needs to have a complicated URLs, that's just bad design. No need to scrap the entire concept of URLs because some people use it improperly.
- cwkoss 8y ago
  Yeah, I think Google could accomplish a similar result by publishing a 'nice URL' standard, where your page can be dinged on SEO if it does not conform. Getting rid of the thousands of ugly URLs used by their own products could also go a long way...
  - Reedx 8y ago
    I'd be curious to see what people would consider that to be. Using HN as an example, what would the nice URL look like for this page?
    - pferde 8y ago
      There's not much room for improvement there. However, the page I am writing this reply on could - it's: <https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=17913014&goto=item%3Fid%3D17911009%2317913014> https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=17913014&goto=item%3Fi..., which is getting ugly. The prime candidates for URL deuglification would be sites like amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-Falcon-133410-Binoculars-Black/dp/B00004TBLW?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=e783a840-dc64-47f3-93ad-50aaa33da140&pf_rd_r=0YK0VWY7DVGGMPH0EG9E https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-Falcon-133410-Binoculars-Bla... I mean, what the hell are all those identifiers, and why should anyone besides amazon.com's internal staff even see them?
      - merb 8y ago
        actually your amazon link is a reflink, the whole amazon link is just: https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-Falcon-133410-Binoculars-Black/dp/B00004TBLW https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-Falcon-133410-Binoculars-Bla... which is basically the product name + model number + asin ASIN: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Standard_Identification_Number https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Standard_Identification... Link can also be shortened to just the asin. (ASIN = ISBN applied to everything)
Someone 8y ago
Reading the article, I get the impression all they are thinking of is tweaking the way URLs are displayed (“We want to challenge how URLs should be displayed and question it as we’re figuring out the right way to convey identity.") I think a simple improvement would be to bolden the domain name in a URL. Browsers could also add some styling to hyperlinks indicating whether they are to the same domain, to another domain that user trusts (for example because a login cookie has been set on its domain), but I expected diminishing returns on that. Even if it can be done reliably from a technical point of view, users won’t learn to discriminate multiple kinds of links.
- shaftway 8y ago
  Also any modifications to the space that belongs to the page is just begging for someone to build an in-page facsimile, especially when that modification is meant to engender trust.
- dfabulich 8y ago
  > I think a simple improvement would be to bolden the domain name in a URL. They already did that. If you open Chrome right now, you'll see that the non-domain part is greyed out. It doesn't help much.
muhneesh 8y ago
I think making web apps similar to the mobile experience would be awesome.. then we can have less startups with wacky names because they can't get a unique domain.
anfilt 8y ago
Go away google.
- dang 8y ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
goombastic 8y ago
At this point, I am beginning to believe this might be a non-problem for the vast majority being framed as a problem for google to milk it somehow. We haven't connected the dots yet.
nunez 8y ago
I think URLs will die; it's just a matter of when Most people don't go to addresses; they go to sites. In other words, people don't care about putting that "https" before they visit Facebook; they want Facebook and know that typing in "facebook.com" gets them there Additionally, most of today's browsing isn't even done by web browser; it's done through mobile apps. That's why Apple wants to make the iPad the primary computing device; they already have a market-leading position on apps, so once iPads become the way that people compute, the efficacy of web browsers greatly diminishes Additionally still, Chrome sets itself up to use Google as its primary search engine. Thus, if I type "facebook" into the search bar, the first result is almost always what I want (facebook.com). As well, Google (and other search engines) already do crazy-accurate location-based and context-aware searching so that they know that typing "ford" in Akron, OH likely means "ford.com" and typing "ford" in Toyko likely means "ford.co.jp." So it makes sense for Google to think "What if people just typed the name of the thing they wanted without having to worry about whether it needs "https" or if it's a .com or a .org? What if objects on the internet can be located via some other means?"
- solarkraft 8y ago
  I disagree. URLs still save state in a standard, copyable way. I find that to be very important and experience situations in which I miss them quite regularly.
felixfbecker 8y ago
I hope this will make URLs more transparent and _easier_ to "hack", not the opposite. URLs and deep linking is what makes the web great. If this means making that feature of the web accessible to everyone, that's awesome. If it means trying to get rid of it, that's bad. For example, allow websites to customize how the URL is displayed. Every website nowadays has breadcrumbs. Let them put them in the URL instead. Let them provide icons and dropdowns for segments, but still allow users to change, copy and paste the raw URL (like the Windows file explorer).
pasbesoin 8y ago
So, what, then? All POST, all the time? Seen versions of that. No, thanks. Just hide the address bar? We already quasi have this, where people just type what they want into a Google search. And if Google doesn't list it prominently, they are at a loss and/or use some other site, instead. People used to be totally overwhelmed by security. You know what? When it started to impact them, personally, they learned. I'm continually surprised by the conversations I now hear around me, by "normal people". The URL isn't "too difficult". It's that people don't care about it. And "tech" keeps trying to hide it further.

52 points by LopRabbit 8y ago

mtgx 8y ago

I wonder what is Google's real reason for this. I have a suspicion it may have something to do with Chrome adding tracking variables to all the URLs you visit, or something along those lines. And they don't want most people to know about it.

social_quotient 8y ago
Tracking and AMP abstraction were the first to come to my mind. Without a url you could AMP the desktop experience and just manage the entire experience.
- walterbell 8y ago
  Google gave a demo where the browser address bar will no longer show the URL of the web server (e.g. Google AMP), it will show the authenticated origin of the Web Package, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16456025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16456025
vgeek 8y ago
Shift user behavior from URLs to branded search queries where either the brand pays exorbitant CPMs (low CPC but high CTR, leading to higher earnings per mille than even insurance or law related queries) to protect their branded traffic or risk losing traffic to competitors trademark bidding.
kart23 8y ago
After typing something into the firefox search bar, I was greeted by a google captcha that would not let me pass, since I was using a VPN. I then had to punch in duckduckgo.com into the bar to get what I wanted. It was unfamiliar and awkward to not be able to access google to find what I needed. Imagine the url didn't exist, the user would have no way to connect to the internet without going through google. I think Google wants to receive more traffic, collect more data, all while controlling users access to the internet.

dlojudice 8y ago

Reminds me the effort Douglas Crockford was making (still making?) years ago when he was rethinking web infrastructure [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TwrABEAfTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TwrABEAfTk - 7m30s

pferde 8y ago

> But over time, URLs have gotten more and more difficult to read and understand. As web functionality has expanded, URLs have increasingly become unintelligible strings of gibberish combining components from third-parties or being masked by link shorteners and redirect schemes. There's no reason a well-behaved web sire (or application) needs to have a complicated URLs, that's just bad design. No need to scrap the entire concept of URLs because some people use it improperly.

cwkoss 8y ago
Yeah, I think Google could accomplish a similar result by publishing a 'nice URL' standard, where your page can be dinged on SEO if it does not conform. Getting rid of the thousands of ugly URLs used by their own products could also go a long way...
- Reedx 8y ago
  I'd be curious to see what people would consider that to be. Using HN as an example, what would the nice URL look like for this page?
  - pferde 8y ago
    There's not much room for improvement there. However, the page I am writing this reply on could - it's: <https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=17913014&goto=item%3Fid%3D17911009%2317913014> https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=17913014&goto=item%3Fi..., which is getting ugly. The prime candidates for URL deuglification would be sites like amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-Falcon-133410-Binoculars-Black/dp/B00004TBLW?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=e783a840-dc64-47f3-93ad-50aaa33da140&pf_rd_r=0YK0VWY7DVGGMPH0EG9E https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-Falcon-133410-Binoculars-Bla... I mean, what the hell are all those identifiers, and why should anyone besides amazon.com's internal staff even see them?
    - merb 8y ago
      actually your amazon link is a reflink, the whole amazon link is just: https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-Falcon-133410-Binoculars-Black/dp/B00004TBLW https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-Falcon-133410-Binoculars-Bla... which is basically the product name + model number + asin ASIN: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Standard_Identification_Number https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Standard_Identification... Link can also be shortened to just the asin. (ASIN = ISBN applied to everything)

Someone 8y ago

Reading the article, I get the impression all they are thinking of is tweaking the way URLs are displayed (“We want to challenge how URLs should be displayed and question it as we’re figuring out the right way to convey identity.") I think a simple improvement would be to bolden the domain name in a URL. Browsers could also add some styling to hyperlinks indicating whether they are to the same domain, to another domain that user trusts (for example because a login cookie has been set on its domain), but I expected diminishing returns on that. Even if it can be done reliably from a technical point of view, users won’t learn to discriminate multiple kinds of links.

shaftway 8y ago
Also any modifications to the space that belongs to the page is just begging for someone to build an in-page facsimile, especially when that modification is meant to engender trust.
dfabulich 8y ago
> I think a simple improvement would be to bolden the domain name in a URL. They already did that. If you open Chrome right now, you'll see that the non-domain part is greyed out. It doesn't help much.

muhneesh 8y ago

I think making web apps similar to the mobile experience would be awesome.. then we can have less startups with wacky names because they can't get a unique domain.

anfilt 8y ago

Go away google.

dang 8y ago
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

goombastic 8y ago

At this point, I am beginning to believe this might be a non-problem for the vast majority being framed as a problem for google to milk it somehow. We haven't connected the dots yet.

nunez 8y ago

I think URLs will die; it's just a matter of when Most people don't go to addresses; they go to sites. In other words, people don't care about putting that "https" before they visit Facebook; they want Facebook and know that typing in "facebook.com" gets them there Additionally, most of today's browsing isn't even done by web browser; it's done through mobile apps. That's why Apple wants to make the iPad the primary computing device; they already have a market-leading position on apps, so once iPads become the way that people compute, the efficacy of web browsers greatly diminishes Additionally still, Chrome sets itself up to use Google as its primary search engine. Thus, if I type "facebook" into the search bar, the first result is almost always what I want (facebook.com). As well, Google (and other search engines) already do crazy-accurate location-based and context-aware searching so that they know that typing "ford" in Akron, OH likely means "ford.com" and typing "ford" in Toyko likely means "ford.co.jp." So it makes sense for Google to think "What if people just typed the name of the thing they wanted without having to worry about whether it needs "https" or if it's a .com or a .org? What if objects on the internet can be located via some other means?"

solarkraft 8y ago
I disagree. URLs still save state in a standard, copyable way. I find that to be very important and experience situations in which I miss them quite regularly.

felixfbecker 8y ago

I hope this will make URLs more transparent and _easier_ to "hack", not the opposite. URLs and deep linking is what makes the web great. If this means making that feature of the web accessible to everyone, that's awesome. If it means trying to get rid of it, that's bad. For example, allow websites to customize how the URL is displayed. Every website nowadays has breadcrumbs. Let them put them in the URL instead. Let them provide icons and dropdowns for segments, but still allow users to change, copy and paste the raw URL (like the Windows file explorer).

pasbesoin 8y ago

So, what, then? All POST, all the time? Seen versions of that. No, thanks. Just hide the address bar? We already quasi have this, where people just type what they want into a Google search. And if Google doesn't list it prominently, they are at a loss and/or use some other site, instead. People used to be totally overwhelmed by security. You know what? When it started to impact them, personally, they learned. I'm continually surprised by the conversations I now hear around me, by "normal people". The URL isn't "too difficult". It's that people don't care about it. And "tech" keeps trying to hide it further.