Should I use an acronym in my URL?

[MeasureEverything]

I know that Google understands various acronyms. Example: If I search for CRM System, it knows i'm searching for a customer relationship management system. However, will it recognize less known acronyms? I have a page geared specifically for SAP data archiving for human capital management systems. For those in the industry, they simply call it HCM. Here is how I view my options:

Option #1: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/human-capital-management

Option #2: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/hcm

Option #3: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/hcm-human-capital-management

With option #3, i'm capturing the acronym AND the full phrase. This doesn't make my URL overly long either. Of course, in my content i'll reference both. What does everyone else think about the URL?

-Alex

[Shawn_Huber]

I agree with Kevin, use what is common for those that are searching for the information, and think using both is a good idea. In my industry it is common to see both city and airport code in the URL

Example of what I commonly see:

http://www.kayak.com/flight-routes/United-States-US0/Seattle-Tacoma-Intl-SEA

http://www.kayak.com/flight-routes/Los-Angeles-LAX/Seattle-Tacoma-Intl-SEA

http://flights.expedia.com/flights-from-seattle-to-los-angeles-sea-to-lax/

[KevinBudzynski]

Alex, I prefer to have the most relevant term in the url. No big issues with what your doing except the url being a bit more difficult to understand. If you do decide on one term, I don't think you will be missing out on traffic for the other term as the rest of your on-page seems to be optimized properly for the that term as well. Good luck!

[MeasureEverything]

Thanks. I agree that it makes it a bit more difficult to read. I had planned on putting "Human Capital Management (HCM)" in the meta description and page title, but will likely use just the acronym in the body. Since that's easier to read, maybe I should do the same in the URL by placing the acronym at the end of the phrase instead of the beginning. That eliminates the readability issue and incorporates the acronym. While people mostly use the acronym, there are so many keywords in the phrase and I don't want to miss out on that.

What do you think?

Thanks for your fast response.

-Alex

[KevinBudzynski]

IMHO, whatever the prospect is more likely to query use that in your url since it will be highlighted. I would probably not group them together as it makes the url a bit more difficult to read (so options 1 and 2 will work). Furthermore, whatever you chose I would put in the meta description "Human Capital Management (HCM)..." in case the prospect choose one or the other and include both variations on the landing page.