Stack Exchange SEO technique [closed]

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Stack Exchange uses the following URL format for questions:

+-----------------------------------+-------+----------------------------+
|                                   |   ID  |                            |
+-----------------------------------+-------+----------------------------+
| http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1234567/question-heading            |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| http://stackoverflow.com/users    /1234567/user-name                   |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Though the question loads without the question heading, ie. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1234567, then why does Stack Exchange use the question-heading and user-name part of the URL?

WordPress too uses a similar URL redressing.

Is this an SEO trick or some other thing?

Answer 1

Having keywords in your URL is a positive ranking factor for search engines. So putting the title, username, etc, is a great way to help a page rank well for the keywords on that page since, theoretically, a well written title and question will result in answers that will also contain important, and related, keywords in them.