Difference in appearance of page URLs

Question

My customers are asking me why there is a difference between page URLs in the same space:

* Use the name of the page as it's URL
* Use the PageId as it's URL

(See attached)

Will someone help me understand this?  Both pages were accessed via searching on the name of the page.

efavreau · Answer

@Greg Della-CroceThis is your best reference:
https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/the-differences-between-various-url-formats-for-a-confluence-page-278692715.html

In short:

* Page Title ("Pretty") Format

* As this URL format is based on the page title, there are conditions in which can prevent the pretty format from being generated.

* PageId Format

* Unlike the pretty format, the PageId format can be used to refer to any page in Confluence, since each page has a unique pageId value (stored in the database). As long as the pageId is known, a user can substitute the value to the end of the URL and access the page directly. The URL for a given page is static and will retain the same pageId reference even the page is renamed or moved to a different location.

* Shortened ("Tiny Link") Format

* It is generated based on the PageId after converting to byte array and encoded to base64

For more details, read the entire Confluence Support page I referenced above.

Rob Woodgate · Answer

Hi Greg,

Nic is right.  To add to what he says, there is a 3rd link type as well called Tiny link.  So for any one page you'll have the following 3 links, all of which point to the same page:

* Friendly name: https://xxx.atlassian.net/wiki/display/EX/Example+Page
* Page ID: https://xxx.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=57686360
* Tiny Link: https://xxx.atlassian.net/wiki/z/JgQ-AF

The Friendly name link will only appear, as Nic says, if the page name doesn't contain any special characters.

Something important to know is that the Friendly name and Page ID links will change if the title of the page changes.  If you share one of those links and the title of the page changes between you sharing the link and the recipient clicking on the link, the link won't work.

However, the Tiny Link is a permanent link (aka permalink or static link) to the page itself, and will work as long as the page hasn't been deleted, no matter what changes you make to the page title.  You can find the Tiny Link for a page by clicking on the ellipsis at the top right of a page (in View mode) and clicking Link to this Page...

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

URLs cannot contain some characters (un-encoded), so if you use them in the page title, Confluence can't generate urls from them.  See https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/confluence-page-urls-contain-pageid-instead-of-the-page-title-278692715.html

The page-id based url of a page is always available.  The nice-human-friendly name only when the name doesn't have special characters.