What is a cruft-free URL?

Answer 1

I've always heard this phrase in reference to a generally clean looking url that only contains the minimum amount of information necessary to complete the task.

Specifically in the context of Yahoo! it might mean a link that has the tracking and redirection information removed from it.

For instance, if you mouse over the Home link in the breadcrumb list above, you'll see a url that looks like this:
http://answers.yahoo.com/;_ylt=AohyFXU_6A8v44HOJrVIzD4azKIX

The cruft-free version of this is:
http://answers.yahoo.com