Permalink

A permalink is a term used in the world of blogging to indicate a URL which points to a specific blog entry. A permalink is accessible even after the entry has passed from the front page and into the blog archives. The term is a portmanteau made by contracting the phrase "permanent link". The permanent URLs created are often simple and human-readable to ease the process of linking to a particular entry and are designed within blogging software to remain unchanged indefinitely so as to help prevent link rot. The practice is utilized by mainstream news and other types of websites as well, although the term permalink is most common within the blogosphere. Permalinks are supported in most modern weblogging and content syndication software systems, including Movable Type, LiveJournal, and Blogger.

History

The term was first used by Scott Banister and Matt Kerner in 1995, although this may not have referred to the same use of a unique, persistent URL for an individual item of content.

One cited early use of a permalink in its current sense was by Jason Kottke on March 5, 2000, in a post titled: "Finally. Did you notice the" (permalinked at http://www.kottke.org/00/03/finally-did-you-notice-the.) Matt Haughey had discussed a permalink style feature with Blogger co-founders, Evan Williams and Paul Bausch the previous weekend and Paul Bausch had pointed out that it was technically feasible to produce permanent links in Blogger, using a feature written by him that allowed the ID of a post to be placed in a Blogger template. In response to Kottke's blog, on March 6, 2000, Matt Haughey posted the technical details on his own weblog, which helped open the way to widespread adoption.

Purpose

Permanence in links is desirable when content items are likely to be linked to, from, or cited by, a source outside the originating organization. Before the advent of large-scale dynamic websites built on database-backed content management systems, it was more common for URLs of specific pieces of content to be static and human readable, as URL structure and naming were dictated by the entity creating that content. Increased volume of content and difficulty of management led to the rise of database-driven systems, and the resulting unwieldy and often-changing URLs necessitated deliberate policies with regard to URL design and link permanence. For example, Wikipedia's internal cgi-based URLs are re-written to a more human-readable form [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permalink.

In the case of a blog, if an author posts many entries, this can mean that a specific entry is only accessible for a limited amount of time from the site's front page. Upon their return, visitors who had stored that URL rather than a permalink often find the desired article is replaced by more recent content. Prominently posting permalinks is a method employed by bloggers to encourage visitors to store a more viable URL for reference.

Permalinks frequently consist of a string of characters which represent the date and time of posting, and an identifier which denotes the author which initially authored the item or its subject. Crucially, if an item is changed, renamed, or moved within the internal database, its permalink remains unaltered, as it functions as a magic cookie which references an internal database identifier. If an item is deleted altogether, its permalink can frequently not be reused.

Permalinks have subsequently been exploited for a number of innovations, including link tracing and link trackback in weblogs, and referring to specific weblog entries in RSS or Atom syndication streams.

Permalinks and versions

Many blogging and content management systems do not support versioning of content, that is, if an entry is updated, a uniquely accessible version is not created. Thus, in the context of these systems, a permalink may refer to different content over time. In the context of systems that support versioning, such as most wikis, a permalink is commonly understood as a link to a specific version. Here, both the link itself and the resource it refers to should not change over time.

One wiki implementation which supports this type of permalinks is MediaWiki, the software which runs Wikipedia. In its current implementation, old revisions of specific articles, images, and templates are referenceable by unique unchanging URLs, although old versions of images and templates may not be utilized by current entries. Permanent links to specific versions are recommended for citing articles from sources such as Wikipedia and Wikinews, to ensure that the content remains unchanged for review. A reviewer can then view the cited revision, the current revision, and the differences between the two.

Popular permalink formats

Blogging software creators and blog hosting websites have not agreed on a standard format for permalink URLs. Some within the blogging community feel that standardization would lead to the practice of meta-information about articles being mined from the URLs themselves rather than an associated RSS stream or meta tags stored within the content. Although various permalink implementations accomplish essentially the same job, several vendors have produced different solutions.

Movable Type and TypePad: http://.typepad.com//<4 digit year>/<2 digit month>/<15 character name>.html

Blogspot: http://.blogspot.com/<4 digit year>/<2 digit month>/
.html

boastMachine: http:///post///

WordPress: http:///<4 digit year>/<2 digit month>/<2 digit date>/
/

LiveJournal and Bloglines: http://.livejournal.com/.html; http://users.livejournal.com//.html for usernames beginning or ending with an underscore; http://community.livejournal.com//.html for communities

Midgard CMS: http:///midcom-permalink-

Typo: http:///articles/<4 digit year>/<2 digit month>/<2 digit date>/

Community Server: http:///archive/<4 digit year>/<2 digit month>/<2 digit date>/
.aspx

Presentation of permalinks

Blog entries are usually laid out as follows:

Title
Date
Entry
Comments, permalink, and what category the entry was posted to (known as metadata)

Permalinks are usually denoted by text link (i.e. "Permalink" or "Link to this Entry"), but sometimes a symbol may be used. The most common symbol used is the hash sign, or #. However, certain websites employ their own symbol to represent a permalink such as an asterisk, a dash, or a unique icon.

Permalink detection

Permalinks can be indicated within the HTML of a page so as to allow automated browsing tools to detect the permalink and use it for linking instead of the stated URL. The link element should include the following attributes:

URL" />

External links

Blogs | Portmanteaus

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