Persistent Uniform Resource Locators (PURL)

The Persistent Uniform Resource Locator technology provides indirection handling of HTTP URLs

A PURL provides a reference to an intermediate resolution service. The PURL resolution service associates the PURL with the actual URL and returns that URL to the client.

A PURL has three parts: (1) a protocol, (2) a resolver address, and (3) a name. A PURL looks like any of the following:

  http://purl.oclc.org/keith/home
  http://purl.oclc.org/OCLC/PURL/FAQ
  http://purl.oclc.org/OCLC/OLUC/32127398/1

PURLs, also known as Persistent URLs, were developed by the Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC) in the 1990s.

Reference URLs: 
http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch
Maturity Estimate: 
Unspecified
Posted March 22nd, 2007 by graybeal
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