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What’s in a (System) Name?

A lot, actually. Especially when it comes to your image and document file names.

Why should you care?

  • people see your file names
  • search engines (try to) read your file names
  • down the road you or your web successor will not know what image569.jpg is

Master your system names:

  • be specific and use keywords (humans and search engines will thank you)
  • don’t use spaces between words (browsers hate them and will insert a %20 in their place)
  • use dashes (-) to separate words
  • use lowercase (yes, it matters)
  • check your spelling

If your interest is piqued about simple ways to improve your web content, check out the Searchability section of our Web Writing & Style Guide for more best practices.