FLETCHERJONESAUDI.COM/NORTHAVE.HTM

ALL CAPS and /Slashes can be tolerated but what comes after the slash here is unforgivable. North and Ave are 2 words that just don't go well smushed together (Nort Have?) and there's no reason to include .HTM. This URL is High-Total-Maintenance, let's hope their cars aren't!

www.sintbernadus.be

Apparently Saint is spelled Sint in Dutch which is the most popular language in Belgium which is where this brewery hails from which is why I won't fall them for choosing this URL. But not also buying SaintBernadus.be and displaying the URL in alllowercase are 2 unforgivable sins.

WWW.NAPLETOWN.COM

OK, so the name of the dealership is Napleton's but the URL is Napletown? Sorry, but it's brown frown for Napletown. :(

WWW.crossroadspublichouse.com

I've been on a bit of a hiatus from URL-spotting but this one caught my eye as a misuse of CAPS I don't think I've seen before. For some reason, the dubs here are capitalized and the rest of the URL is in alllowercase. Talk about putting the em-phah-sis on the wrong sy-lah-bles!

HTTP://WWW.KNOPE2012.COM/IMAGESCMYK/CAMPAIGN/1239U/09230023/POSTER/.JPEG

Just say Knope to Bad URLs! Bet poor Leslie wished this domain got parked rather than (w)rec(k)ed.

EMAIL www.amvetspickup.com

And just how would one do that?

Your Other Warehouse.com

Saw this on the shelf at Home Depot but couldn't figure out how to get to my other Warehouse.com.

DANiELISLANDTechSavvyKIDSCLUB.com

Let's hope they're not teaching kids how to choose and display domain names. Whoever came up with this looooong URL sure was riding the short bus!

att.con

Whoever put the stickers on this truck should be con-victed!

www.agremodeling.com

Maybe it's because I had my eyes on the dash trying to figure out the name of the tune I was jamming to or maybe it's because I'm an URL-aholic but I read the back of this truck bottom up. So my first encounter was with the URL. "Hmmm... AgreModeling.com... sweet!" I thought as I turned my gaze up expecting to find a bunch of hot models sitting in the back of the truck. "DOH!"

facebook.com/siriusxmjamon

Great station. Bad URL. Like an extended jam, this URL wraps to second line. Never liked the character limits on Sirius XM. Always cuts off artist or title. Didn't even know wrapping was possible until I saw this. There has to be a way they can play with fonts or allow you to click to see full names.

Back to this URL, alllowercasedoesn't do it any favors. Too many weird letters. This URL is obscure as some of the bands they play.

www.chick-fil-aleadercast.com/atlanta

Here's another SkewURL (for the uninitiated, those are URLs spotted by URL-aholic Peter Askew of Search Bound) from Chick-Fil-A . Peter seems to eat there a lot!

This one is a mess of mashed up alllowercase and an ill-advised /slash. As Peter points, out it should've been Chick-Fil-A.com/LeadercastAtlanta or dropped Atlanta altogether and had a drop-down on the landing page.

As it stands, this URL is not chic. It's not ful-fil-ling. And it grades an F not an A.

http://bit.ly/dn5n10

Here's a tip when using bit.ly or other URL shorteners in print. Customize them! Too tough to tell the difference between zero and letter O and one and letter L. And this one ends with both. Oy vey! Thanks again to Brian Leiberman for the spot and reminding us that a little bit of extra effort goes a long way.

Cheetos.com

Talk about bold. Cheetos dares to assume that its orange sticks that look like shriveled pretzels are so ubiquitous that they can be used interchangably with the brand name. Reminds me of NBC's ambiguous Peacock.com. Thanks to Brian Leiberman for sending this one in and making my hands feel sticky just looking at it.

www.EMBA.utk.edu

The URL-alert Alichia Keller spotted this one and offered up some pun gems like "Education needs an education" and "This school needs to be schooled." Indeed the mix of CAPS and lowercase is befuddling. And the dubs aren't necessary in an online ad. Methinks this URL does not make the grade.

alllowercase.google.urls/CamelCaseHere

Google recently announced that all domains in search ad display URLs would appear in alllowercase. "For example, if your display URL is Subdomain.Example.com/Subdirectory, it will appear as subdomain.example.com/Subdirectory."

Fellow URL-aholics know this is not a best practice for making your domain easy to decipher. Yet, Google says, "Recently, we found that by standardizing the look of the URLs on the page, we were able to improve many of our user metrics, including ad clickthrough rates." Maybe that's because of all the accidental clicks resulting from people not being able to easily recognize the domain they're clicking on!

What does this mean for all the Google advertisers out there? Wherever possible, use Subdirectories for your search ad landing pages as opposed to Subdomains. On a crowded Google results page, if you want to stand out from the clutter and pre-qualify your clicks, use Camel Case Subdirectories to let searchers know what they should expect to find on your site.

adultstudies.trnty.edu

And a few vowels could change your URL!

www.exercisetv.tv./fitness360

What is it with Ex-er-cise-tv-dot-tv? Not only is it a Bad URL but it has no concept of how to display itself. Not what you'd expect from a franchise devoted to improving one's appearance. Here, they not only present a mess of alllowercase preceded by Dubs and followed by a slash but theres an extra dot thrown in for good measure that makes this not even a functioning URL. Dot's not very nice.

AFFILIATEDOTCOM.com

Sorry for being AWOL these past couple months. Don't worry, I haven't been cured of my URL-aholism. Was just busy promoting my Google book via blog tour and settling into my new role at Kenshoo. More on why I took the gig on the now defunct Connectual blog.

Thankfully, my fellow URL-aholics have been busy URL-spotting in my absence. Here's one from the URLy bird himself, Peter Askew of SkewURL fame (this is his 43rd submission, mind you).

As Peter observed, "at first I thought the site was Affiliate.com... until I looked a little closer..."

Bottom line, Affiliate dot com dot com dot bombs.

officedeskandchairexperts.com

Here's one from our good friend and Duke of URL, Aaron Bynum. In his words...

"Attached here is a screenshot from a local (Champaign, IL) TV commercial by a furniture business.

I'm a bit stumped as to why they plaster the URL 'officedeskandchairexperts.com' in the TV commercial, when the URL is just a redirect to 'IllniSupply.com'... it seems like a wasted effort."

As I mentioned in my reply to Aaron, while this URL is great for SEO purposes, it doesn't quite roll off the tongue... or casters.

And the alllowercase is doing them no favors. Anytime I see a lower case URL with experts in it, I always think of expertsexchange.com.

When promoting their website, this URL should be desk-arded.