New today: App URLs now contain the app name
In the spirit of our previous introduction of more readable vendor URLs, starting today, Marketplace app URLs have been updated to a new, more readable format that contains the app name itself.
You don’t need to take any action - this change and all related redirects are automatic.
Why change? Search engines (and humans) will be happier
The previous format for app URLs included the app key, a value you specify when you create your app. This value might not have been meaningful to the app itself, and it couldn’t be changed. As a result, your app URL might not have even referred to the name of your app, and you were stuck with it forever.
With the the change we released today, the name of your app is included in its URL, making it much more readable for humans. This is also desirable from an SEO standpoint, since search engines like when the URL echoes the page content. And now, if you change the name of your app, the URL automatically changes along with it.
Anatomy of the new URL format
This is what app URLs used to look like:
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/APPKEY/HOSTING/overview
And here’s how they look now:
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/APPID/NAME-OF-YOUR-APP
e.g.
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/254/gliffy-diagrams-for-confluence
The new URL format contains three elements - the word “apps”, the app ID, and the app name.
- The word “plugins” has at last been banished from the URL, in favor of our new terminology, “apps”.
- The app ID is an auto-generated value that uniquely identifies the app. It’s what tells us how to route the visitor.
- Finally, the app name is lower cased, with spaces and non-alphanumeric characters rendered as hyphens. For routing purposes the name is purely cosmetic, but it’s included in the canonical URL.
The hosting model (cloud or server) is no longer part of the canonical URL. Instead, it has moved to the query string, along with the tab name, e.g.:
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/APPID/NAME-OF-YOUR-APP?hosting=cloud&tab=overview
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/APPID/NAME-OF-YOUR-APP?hosting=server&tab=pricing
Redirects are taken care of
We’ll automatically redirect any requests for your old URL (including all variations with the hosting and tab name) to their new equivalents. These are handled as 301 redirects, which means search engines will eventually pick up the new URL in their index.
If you happen to change your app name in the future, we automatically update the name part of the URL, and we’ll make sure visitors are properly redirected to it.
In fact, we’ll redirect anything that starts with the app ID. So for example, if your new URL is:
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1234567/my-app-name
Then any of the following will redirect to your URL:
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1234567
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1234567/my-old-app-name
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1234567/foo
*Some of you old-timers will remember that the app ID used to be part of the URL:
https://plugins.atlassian.com/1234567
And yes - that still redirects as well. 
You still have an app key
You’ll still specify an app key (or “plugin key” as we used to call it) when you create your app, and this value remains important behind the scenes. For example, you’ll continue to use the app key when referring to your app in the Marketplace REST API, e.g.:
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/rest/2/addons/APPKEY
Kudos
A huge word of appreciation goes to @rtalusan, who took on this complicated change in 20% time and saw it through to completion. Nice work Ryan!
Also, thanks to @edave from Easy Agile for making this improvement request in AMKT-15982.
Questions?
Please let us know if you have any questions about this change.
