Let's talk Web sites

(This post was inspired by real events, but identifying details have been changed, so as not to offend the offender.)

The rule of thumb: Keep it simple.

Say you're writing a story, and you want to add a Web site to which people can go for more information on the subject. For purposes of this example, you are writing a story about the Cincinnati Opera's performance of Carmen. You go to the Cincinnati Opera's Web site, which is www.cincinnatiopera.com. There, you see a link to the opera's Summer Festival, of which Carmen is a part. You click on that, and it gives you a list of the operas that are a part of the Summer Festival. Click on "Carmen," and you get a site with info about the show and a link to buy tickets. The site's URL is as such: http://www.cincinnatiopera.com/content.jsp?articleId=31

Now of course, this is the site to which you want to point your readers. But come on. They're never going to remember that. Don't bother with the jsps and the articleids - just list www.cincinnatiopera.com. The main Web site is simple enough to navigate that no reader is going to be flummoxed by it. (You like that word "flummox"? So do I, baby.)

Be nice to your reader - give them something that won't leave them hunched over the keyboard for an hour, flicking from paper to screen to make sure they put that last slash in the right place. Being led to a simple URL that's two clicks away from what you want is infinitely preferable to that miserable fate.

If it's something that's not linked directly from the homepage (say, a product listing on Amazon or eBay), just give the homepage and tell the readers to do a search for "ted koppel nude pictures" or whatever the story's about.

Of course, sometimes the only URL available will be long and complicated. C'est la vie. Go ahead and list it. It's better than nothing.