New Geocaching.com Urls... Guid=....

[+alexm]

Here's a dumb question...

 

Is there any correlation between the new format of geocaching.com cache page URLS, the old format, and/or the Groundspeak:cache id tag in a GPX file?

 

new way:
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid={A44C8349-4F2E-45D6-B1A2-7D77FD799CD8}

old way:
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GCG289

gpx cache id:
Groundspeak:cache id="67715"

 

And is the old way ever going to go away? I'd think there are WAY too many existing links in that format, but I figured I'd ask anyway.

 

Thanks!

Edited December 13, 2003 by alexm

[+DustyJacket]

Maybe they changed it to prevent "spiders" and "crawlers" from harvesting the data stored on this site.

[+Prime Suspect]

Maybe they changed it to prevent "spiders" and "crawlers" from harvesting the data stored on this site.

No, because the old links using either the cache's numeric ID or waypoint still work fine.

 

A GUID (globally unique identifier) is just another way of slapping an ID on something. The nice thing is that you don't have to worry about the IDs clashing with identifiers generated by some other system. If everyone follows the GUID rules, no system will ever generate the same identifier twice, nor will it ever be generated by any other system.

 

I use them often when I need to create a temporary file name that I am certain will be unique (and that no other program will step on).