# Why is it important to use short names in Plone?

Short names become apart of the <span class="caps">URL</span> for Plone sites. Instead of an auto generated <span class="caps">URL</span>, you can create an easy to remember <span class="caps">URL</span>. For example, say you created a “General Information” page, your <span class="caps">URL</span> can show up like this: generalinfo or general-info, as opposed to something like this: 2006-05-11.1561651564.

Also notice how underscores are not used in creating short names. The reason is for functionality: underscores disappear when you email the link (most word processors will format the text to become a <span class="caps">URL</span> so it’ll highlight and underline the text), the second reason is because it’s hard to explain to a person what an underscore is. Check out Plone’s road map for more in info: [http://plone.org/products/plone/roadmap/73](http://plone.org/products/plone/roadmap/73)

To enable short name editing, see this article: [https://kb.ucla.edu/link/217](https://kb.ucla.edu/link/217)