I have received a few emails about the Autodesk website update that occurred last week. Much of the feedback was good and then some had to do with broken bookmarked URLs. It is with a sincere thank you and hats off to Autodesk Web Gurus Tom Williams and Eric Wright for compiling the following information for me.
The URLs for autodesk.com are based on the category structure of the website, and have and will change over time. We do our best to avoid this, but structural changes to the site architecture sometimes lead to URLs changing.
Because of this, we recommend always using Marketing URL redirects when including links to content in print, in product or elsewhere where the URL needs to be "guaranteed" not to change. These are set up for support, training, and other high-level categories, typically following a structure of www.autodesk.com/product-category.
Example: www.autodesk.com/autocad-support
Additionally, for Support Knowledge Base, Tips, and Data & Download content, we created a redirect "system" called "getdoc". Similar to marketing URLs, getdoc allows you to append to a root URL the TS or TD# (Knowledge Base), TP# (Tips) or the download ID (DL#) displayed on the content:
Example: http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=DL5620053
These redirects will continue to function even if the "true" autodesk.com URL changes.
Below are a sampling of Marketing URLs "MURLs":
Product Update MURLs
AutoCAD
http://www.autodesk.com/autocad-updates
AutoCAD LT
http://www.autodesk.com/autocadlt-updates
AutoCAD Mechanical
http://www.autodesk.com/autocadmech-updates
AutoCAD Civil 3D
http://www.autodesk.com/civil3d-updates
Autodesk Inventor
http://www.autodesk.com/inventor-updates
AutoCAD Map 3D
http://www.autodesk.com/map3d-updates
Revit Architecture
http://www.autodesk.com/revitbuilding-updates
Product Support MURLs
AutoCAD
http://www.autodesk.com/autocad-support
AutoCAD Architecture
http://www.autodesk.com/autocadarchitecture-support
AutoCAD Civil 3D
http://www.autodesk.com/civil3d-support
AutoCAD Electrical
http://www.autodesk.com/autocadelectrical-support
AutoCAD LT
http://www.autodesk.com/autocadlt-support
AutoCAD Map 3D
http://www.autodesk.com/map3d-support
AutoCAD Mechanical
http://www.autodesk.com/autocadmech-support
Autodesk Inventor
http://www.autodesk.com/inventor-support
Autodesk Maya
http://www.autodesk.com/maya-support
Revit Architecture
http://www.autodesk.com/revit-support
Training MURLs
AutoCAD
http://www.autodesk.com/autocad-training
AutoCAD Architecture
http://www.autodesk.com/archdesktop-training
AutoCAD Civil 3D
http://www.autodesk.com/civil3d-training
AutoCAD Electrical
http://www.autodesk.com/autocadelectrical-training
AutoCAD LT
http://www.autodesk.com/autocadlt-training
AutoCAD Map 3D
http://www.autodesk.com/map3d-training
AutoCAD Mechanical
http://www.autodesk.com/autocadmech-training
Autodesk AliasStudio
http://www.autodesk.com/aliasstudio-training
Autodesk Maya
http://www.autodesk.com/maya-training
Larger List fo MURLs Download 2007MURLS.txt
Thanks Shaan. That’s too bad because the majority of people are just going to copy and paste the URL. What I have noticed lately while searching through old newsgroup posts, is that many of the URL’s pointing to KB articles are invalid. That’s a shame because there is a tremendous amount of info archived out there and it just became a little less useful.
BTW: I always link to KB articles using the KB number… (a bit different than your example)
http://support.autodesk.com/getdoc.asp?ID=TS21336
Thanks Shaan!
The autodesk website has been like this for at least 8 years and with each major update there are broken links but using the MURLs is the safest method to prevent the link breaking. Although every effort is made to not break links they do occur especially when there are of tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of content items all categorized in the website. You can always use the contact Us option for website feedback.
Shaan
RK,
Your comment actually points to a really good example of why not breaking people’s bookmarks is challenging.
support.autodesk.com as a website ceased to exist about four years ago, and the url format you’re using would have broken in the time since.
Use the current http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=TS21336
As I said efforts are made to prevent broken bookmarks, but you might want to start using the ‘new’ format.