What does this technique achieve? Is it bad or good?

[elwebmaster]

There is a technique that makes a category results page never change its links:

www.example.com/category/apartments
www.example.com/category/apartments-apartment1 
www.example.com/category/apartments-apartment2
www.example.com/category/apartments-apartment3
www.example.com/category/apartments-apartment4

Instead of the classic:

www.example.com/category/apartments
www.example.com/details/apartment/id/789
www.example.com/details/apartment/id/788
www.example.com/details/apartment/id/787
www.example.com/details/apartment/id/786

Basically:

1. The URL www.example.com/category/apartments-apartment1 today will have one apartment, and tomorrow will have another, on the same link.
2. The category page never changes links, it always has the same 10 links, that look the same as the category url and are numbered from 1 to 10.

[EricaMcGillivray]

I think that's kind of a great solution for the fast changing world of rentals.

With this one: www.example.com/details/apartment/id/786 - you're going so many folders down that Google may not even index what you have.

[elwebmaster]

Well I know it's a usability issue, but my superior doesn't care about it, he only cares about SEO, and he thinks that technique (that one of our competitors is using) will also be good for our website.

So that's what I'm trying to find out, why are they using it. And the main explanation I find is to have one single category page, with 10 links that get a lot of traffic, since links never change, only the content they point to.

[NakulGoyal]

I think this becomes a usability issue. If I want to link to XYZ Apartment and I link to www.example.com/category/apartments-apartment1, tomorrow, the content of this page changed and its now referencing ABC Apartment, which is not what I intended to do. So it does not sound like a great idea. Another thing, can you do www.example.com/city-state/apartments-name-of-the-apartment-1 www.example.com/city-state/apartments-name-of-the-apartment-2 www.example.com/city-state/apartments-name-of-the-apartment-3 I hope that helps.