Can someone point me to research finding around whether users pay attention to a URL changes?
Quick background info:
I am doing work for a company and there is resistance to having the URL change to much. For example you are on the www.blue.com site and you click on a link that changes the URL to www.red.blue.com.
Keep in mind I am talking about the URL only. What is on the two pages (www.blue.com and www.red.blue.com) would be enough alike that it should not be considered in the question/reseach.
My stance is that a typical user does not pay attention to the URL after they have landing on the site they were looking for (if even then).
Unfortunately a very high level stake holder is convinced that if we have the URL change from the parent site's URL it will negatively impact the user to the point that they abandon what they are doing.
The only way I can convince this person otherwise is with research and data.