Joe, you should ignore the slug in that link/link title, though

I would imagine they’d use it in any number of ways??? Not really sure what you mean there. And that wasn’t really “the intended audience” either – one of them, yes – but certainly not limited to that.

“you don’t have a case for collapsing E- to e in every case, because the resulting compounds become incomprehensible” – To you, maybe so. A 2-minute cursory search in a modern dictionary shows that “email” is, in fact, an alternative use for E-mail. Your argument isn’t with me – it’s with the dictionary writers. Have fun with that.

But more to the point – removing those hyphens is an emerging use of the term, whether or not you like it. And I prefer the new way.

“I see you have learned exactly nothing about slugs” – I could care less about slugs. I realize I DO have that option, but I choose to not do it. If you have a problem with my non-use of slugs, I suggest you get over it or move on, because I’m not changing it any time soon.

“Tell me: How is that actually better, in any respect, than the following? http://www.davidleeking.com/2009/02/18/itinerary09/” Well – I would never use the word “itinerary,” for starters, so in my book what I did on my personal website is in every respect better than your suggestion. My blog, my way.

“Some of us have been around longer and know more” Um… I’ve been successfully making and managing websites since 1995, and messing around with gopher before that. How long have you been doing it? Or did you mean your general age?

David Lee King, can you explain how the intended audience for your posting – librarians new to blogging – will in fact be using a CMS and not an off-the-shelf blog platform like Movable Type, WordPress, or Blogger?

Now, as someone who has little hesitation lecturing other people, let me say I don’t think it’s wise to lecture me about prescriptive vs. descriptive spelling, since I wrote an entire book about Canadian spelling. The right way to spell is the way everyone else spells. You may indeed have a case for website. But you don’t have a case for collapsing E- to e in every case, because the resulting compounds become incomprehensible. Really, email may work fine most of the time (capitalized at the beginning of a sentence? not so much), but ereader? ecommerce? econsultancy? ebook? Can you really defend those?

Also, David, I see you have learned exactly nothing about slugs:

http://www.davidleeking.com/2009/02/18/where-will-david-be-this-spring-and-summer/

Tell me: How is that actually better, in any respect, than the following?

http://www.davidleeking.com/2009/02/18/itinerary09/

Please contain your thanks and work harder on improving your practice. Some of us have been around longer and know more. You should learn from us instead of acting all miffed and digging in your heels (/2009/02/18/acting-all-miffed-and-digging-in-your-heels/).

Teach staff to do it right the first time, and you don’t have to go back and fix it later. Just sayin.

As for the spelling, David’s right, “email” is a legitimate spelling. “Website” is also legit. English is not a static, “there’s only one way to do it” language. Never has been, almost certainly never will be.

My statement is correct: Writers can add as much whitespace as they want (save for non-breaking spaces, and, of course, anything inside pre) and it will all be collapsed to a single space character. Print practice is not Web practice.

/2009/02/10/loading-your-slugs-up-with-every-word-in-the-title-of-your-post-even-if-the-title-is-over-a-dozen-words-long/ is not “good… SEO practice.” The use of semantic HTML is good SEO practice. WordPress, which you’re using, puts the true text of your title inside e.g. H1 tags, where it belongs and where it can be parsed for what it is: The most important heading on the page expressed in human language. Tell me, what is the most important part of /2009/02/10/loading-your-slugs-up-with-every-word-in-the-title-of-your-post-even-if-the-title-is-over-a-dozen-words-long/ and what language is it written in? (For non-English speakers using characters outside the US-ASCII repertoire, what will their slugs look like?)

Again, my statement is correct: Slugs should be one or two memorable and distinctive words that relate to the posting. WordPress lets you easily modify slugs. The way I do it is the correct way. Now, Blogger and other substandard platforms interfere with doing things the correct way.

Incidentally, why are you even concerned about gaming the system so search engines will find your postings faster? What makes you think search engines (there’s only one that counts) have any trouble doing that? Why are you altering your content to suit a machine?

If you think E-mail is email, are E-consultancy and E-business econsultancy and ebusiness? How about ereader?