Pure URLs

I’m fairly savvy in a lot of things to do with technology; I’m usually the one in our house who figures out how something works, from electronic gadgets to computer programs.  Having said that, I’m probably a complete novice when it comes to all things “webby” – web design, computer programming, SEOs, and their ilk.

I found out about something recently that I thought I’d share with you – especially those of you who are authors with e-book editions:  Pure URLs.

When you do a search, say, on Amazon, for your book, the URL will reflect the search phase.  If you use that URL as a hyperlink in your ebook, it won’t work for anyone else – which is hard for you to know as, when you test it, Amazon will recognize your computer and reinstate that search result.

Here’s an example:

If I do a search on Amazon for one of my books, the URL looks like this (with spaces added to prevent conversion):

https: // www. amazon .com / Cardinal-Part-One-Stephanie-Huesler-ebook/dp/B00PKS2EWO/ ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1501893862&sr=1-1 &keywords=Stephanie+Huesler+The+Cardinal+Part+One

the pure URL will be shorter, like this:

https:// www. amazon .com / Cardinal-Part-One-Stephanie-Huesler-ebook / dp/B00PKS2EWO

If I remove the spaces and paste the pure URL into this post, it will look like this:

I hope this helps you as you prepare your document for publication.  It’s something I am in the process of editing in my already-published books (in preparation for updates).  As always, honing skills means that there will be cringe-moments when looking back on writing results from years ago.  Bringing out a new book is good reason to go back and give the other documents (which need to be updated with new book information anyway) a good run-through!