Differences between URL formats for a Confluence Data Center pages

Summary

There are several different ways to link to a given Confluence page, and this KB aims to explain when and how each format is generated.

Three of the most common formats are:

• Page title ("pretty") format

• PageId format

• Shortened ("tiny link") format

Solution

Page Title ("Pretty") Format

Example:

Whenever possible, Confluence will default to using this format to link to pages. This format contains the space key where the page resides, as well as the title of the page itself with some minor substitutions and URL encoding (e.g. spaces are replaced with "+" signs). This type of link allows users to identify what the linked content is about without needing to click on it. If the page title changes, the URL will likewise be updated to reflect the new title. If a user then tries to access a page with the old title in the URL, they will encounter a "Page not found" with a suggestion that the page may have been renamed, including a link to the new page.

As this URL format is based on the page title, there are conditions that can prevent the pretty format from being generated. These conditions include either:

• If the page title contains a URL reserved or unsafe character, such as (but not limited to):

  % & ? / \ ; " § + :

• If the page title contains non-Latin characters such as (but not limited to):

  • German Umlauts

  • CJK Characters

• If the final character of the page title is any non-alphanumeric character.

If either of these is true, Confluence will default to using the pageId URL format instead of trying to generate a pretty URL with the page title.

PageId Format

Example:

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 at 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 if the page is renamed or moved to a different location.

To get PageID follow the steps described in the article: How to get Confluence page ID

Shortened ("Tiny Link") Format

Example:

Typically not seen in the UI, users can request a shortened URL to be generated for any given page by accessing the page and clicking "..." > Page Information. The resulting page will have the tiny link generated. This format is useful if character count is a restriction when sharing the link. It is generated based on the PageId after converting to a byte array and encoded to base64. You can find the technical details here: How to programmatically generate the Tiny link of a Confluence page

Related Feature Requests

There are a couple of feature requests you may wish to follow, relating to page URL formatting:

• Always generate links with "Pretty URL" format, even with special characters in the title: CONFSERVER-11285 - Page names with special characters to generate regular URL

• Always generate links with "PageId" format (some organizations prefer this for privacy or consistency reasons): CONFSERVER-45898 - URLs should be based on pageID instead of pageTitle

Anchor Links

The Confluence Anchor Links will still be working in any of the formats above, such as:

Anchor in Pretty Format

Anchor in PageId Format

Anchor in Tiny Link Format