Why are webmasters adding "The URL for this page is..."

to their sites?

[HughMungus]

Saw it somewhere else this weekend and now on another site. Why would a webmaster want to put on their page, "The URL for this page is..."? Some kind of search engine benefit? Anti-copying benefit?

[instinct]

Possibly so a webmaster or blogger can link to it easily?

If the url has a session identifier or other variable that changes frequently in it, and someone uses that url as a basis for a link, then there will be no (or perhaps lesser) pr benefit.

Thats my guess...

[ddent]

I saw this as a tip once; the reasoning was to help people who printed it out and read it later.

Not that most browsers don't show the URL, but...

[iamlost]

A lot of university/government sites been requiring specific information including that each page display its URL in text - as mentioned above - for print reasons (and my law-type-person says it is also helpful for copyright). It looks like it is creeping into the commercial/artsy realm as well.

The following is a sample of a required footer for such sites pages:

This page has been produced on Tuesday, 09 November 2004 by the WebSiteCreators Unit. Its content has been authorised by the WebSiteClient. Questions about its content or concerns about the appropriateness of content may be directed by email to webmaster@***.org.

This page was last modified on Tuesday, 09 November 2004.

The URL for this page is h**p://www.***.org/some-stuff/this-stuff.htm. You are directed to the disclaimer and copyright notice governing the information provided.

For other WebSiteClient information, please visit h**p://www.***.org/.

[pendanticist]

Should a visitor come into my website deep, I like to provide them with a link to the Home Page.

Sure they can trim back the URL, but why make that a requirement?

Additionally, when an idiot simply cuts and pastes your content into their website, they also take along the root url.

[stef24]

W3 considers it good practise to have a fixed link for your pages. not all dynamically generated pages have that

[ControlEngineer]

Publications often have articles generated by content management software or otherwise dynamically generated with URLs that will be usable for a day or week. The article will then be in an archive with a fixed URL. If you are going to link to the URL or cite the URL in a paper, they provide you with the permanent URL.

Some on-line law journals and other scholarly publications also provide the correct citation, including the permanent URL. That will encourage the citation of the work, something important in the scholarly publishing field.