Why is just an ID in the URL path a bad idea for SEO?

Question

Why is it a bad idea to have a ID in the URL in terms of SEO? How does this URL http://example.com/user/1234 hurt SEO?

Can someone give me a practical e

Answer 1

Well, my name is Sudhir Jonathan, so if I want people to find me on your site, example.com/user/sudhir-jonathan is much much better than example.com/user/1234. Simply because the object of your page - "Sudhir Jonathan" - is now present in the url itself. This is a big win.

Similarly, example.com/articles/how-to-bake-a-cake is ranked much higher than example.com/articles/2379797 for the search term "bake a cake".