I\'m not a web programmer at all so I really have no idea: You\'ll notice that w

Question

I'm not a web programmer at all so I really have no idea:

You'll notice that websites like Stack Exchange have links like this:

http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/188078/policy-and-practice-on-code-maintenance
As you can see, the link includes the "page name" (Policy and practice on code maintenance).

We know this is unnecessary, since I could just use

http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/188078
instead. Curiously, upon using this link, the site will replace it for the one with the page name.

My question is: why do some websites put the page name in their links? What advantages or disadvantages come from that?

The only advantage that comes to my mind is the fact that the link becomes more user friendly since it is easier to identify what the URL is about. But I wonder if there are more technical aspects behind this behavior.

Explanation / Answer

Here are a couple of SO questions that cover this topic as this is an SEO feature generally so that the keywords are part of the URL that can be indexed:

Why do some websites add

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