I concur that numeric IDs are ideal for a database like yours, but you can have information in the address that is ignored on the server. Netflix works that way, where http://www.netflix.com/Movie/60034782 and http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Primer/60034782 both point to the same page. In fact, the title “Primer” can be changed to anything and it still goes to the correct page, because it’s looking at the numeric ID and not the title.

Granted, only handsome internet savvy folks like myself might appreciate it, but it would still be nice if something like that was implemented at IMDb.

We originally used text based URLs, but given that over 1,000 titles per week change their spelling/format/year-of-release, the scheme was unworkable even 10 years ago when we abandoned it. We still support the old syntax, however, be aware that you are linking at your own risk and are likely to leave your visitors with dead links. The old link format is http://www.imdb.com/Title? as in:

http://www.imdb.com/Title?Superbad+(2007)

You’ll need to place leading articles at the end of a title to match our internal format as in:

http://www.imdb.com/Title?Bourne+Ultimatum,+The+(2007)

Given that studies consistently show that the vast majority of users rarely even look at the URL of the page they are viewing, you can bet an even smaller number look at the URL where they are about to click . All in all, it’s better to use to the numeric IDs.

Hope this helps,

Col Needham Founder & managing director, IMDb.com