The example about Amazon is inaccurate.
Here is an Amazon URL:
http://www.amazon.com/Bioshock-Infinite-Premium-Edition-Xbox...
Is it completely clean? Nope. It contains a lot of information that feed into the backend, but the core URL is this:
http://www.amazon.com/Bioshock-Infinite-Premium-Edition-Xbox...
This URL will take you to the correct page, every time, and it doesn't take a genius to figure this out. It also doesn't take a genius to figure out what this page is about before you even paste the link into your browser. By putting the human-relevant portion of the URL as far forward as possible it's able to accomplish both priorities: giving the machine as much information as possible, and giving the human as much information as possible.
The trick here is that "Bioshock-Infinite-Premium-Edition-Xbox-360" is entirely superfluous. It is entirely there for SEO and human readability purposes. This URL works just fine and leads to the same place:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009PJ9L3Y/
Amazon isn't blind to these issues. So sure, you can take this very last URL and try to make a point about obfuscated URLs, but that's not what's actually in use at Amazon. It seems odd to pick them as an example when they're not even a violator.
[edit] It looks like HN truncates long URLs for display, which only goes further to prove the point.
Here is an Amazon URL:
http://www.amazon.com/Bioshock-Infinite-Premium-Edition-Xbox...
Is it completely clean? Nope. It contains a lot of information that feed into the backend, but the core URL is this:
http://www.amazon.com/Bioshock-Infinite-Premium-Edition-Xbox...
This URL will take you to the correct page, every time, and it doesn't take a genius to figure this out. It also doesn't take a genius to figure out what this page is about before you even paste the link into your browser. By putting the human-relevant portion of the URL as far forward as possible it's able to accomplish both priorities: giving the machine as much information as possible, and giving the human as much information as possible.
The trick here is that "Bioshock-Infinite-Premium-Edition-Xbox-360" is entirely superfluous. It is entirely there for SEO and human readability purposes. This URL works just fine and leads to the same place:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009PJ9L3Y/
Amazon isn't blind to these issues. So sure, you can take this very last URL and try to make a point about obfuscated URLs, but that's not what's actually in use at Amazon. It seems odd to pick them as an example when they're not even a violator.
[edit] It looks like HN truncates long URLs for display, which only goes further to prove the point.