Search Friendly URL benefits

[TheSeoGuy]

Can anyone tell me the benefit to search friendly URL's other then the fact that your url has "keyword" specific words pertaining to the page to which the url points?

It's been my experience that search engines will spider both of the following urls.

www.domain.com/default.aspx?cat=27&id=138
www.domain.com/hats-baseball-caps.aspx

The second url is of course easier to read and has three keywords based on the content served up by cat=27 & id=138... The only difference between the two url's above would be just the url correct?

Does having keyword rich url's offer that MUCH benefit to overall rankings?

Thanks in advance for any input on this issue.

[maximillianos]

It is probably one of 200+ different factors used in ranking a page. (or so I believe)

The biggest benefit is from the user's perspective. A friendly URL can appear more appealing to a user, and be clicked on more in SERPs or just from a link being shared on a social site. It is also easier to determine what a page might be about before you visit, giving your page some credibility, etc.

My advice, if you have an old site that does fine and ranks well, don't change it. If you are starting a new site (or a new section of an old site), I would go for friendlier URLs.