pageoneresults - 2:42 pm on May 18, 2008 (gmt 0)

Branding, perhaps, but I don't think you could say "at it's best" since a major sacrifice is consistency; something a lot of brands feel is very important.

But, if we go back to the OP and what brought this topic up...

I noticed CNN uses some capital letters and sometimes whole words in capital in their URL.

Isn't CNN one of those "important brands"?

And hey, we've got anchor text in any case, so that browsing the web doesn't involve a lot of reading of URLs.

Ever print out a topic from WebmasterWorld? Or, from any other resource that follows the "standard practice"? That's why you'll see me do this...

Capital Letters (Pascal Casing) in URLs - Advantages and Disadvantages
[WebmasterWorld.com...]

As opposed to this...

Capital Letters (Pascal Casing) in URLs - Advantages and Disadvantages [webmasterworld.com]

That's just one example.

So, if you have full control over your server, feel free to implement this mixed-casing if the marketing aspects are appealing to you. If not, proceed with caution, and test completely before committing to this approach. Marketing is one thing, but a very slow and inefficient site is another.

You can keep it strictly visual and not change anything in the HTML.

For the average Internet Surfer, I do believe the PascalCasing assists with URI readability. Look at Google AdWords...

[edited by: pageoneresults at 2:53 pm (utc) on May 18, 2008]