which would not fulfill (the basically deprecated) three digit spec for the first 99 posts (maybe even the first 100). also it makes the URL longer, less user

which would not fulfill (the basically deprecated) three digit spec for the first 99 posts (maybe even the first 100). also it makes the URL longer, less user friendly and you have to deal with an URL migration that you might have to revert at some point (i.e.: the example you mentioned) additionally: as it is mentioned that the 3 digit requirement is "waived" with a google news sitemap it is a strong indicator that this is a crawling, not a ranking directive. my 2 cents: don't do it, as it would be a clear violation of the golden URL rule a.k.a. "Don't overdo the f###### URLs!"