> However, it is not entirely clear to me what the tradeoffs are between > using the URL parameter mechanism (e.g., ";version={version identifier}") > versus using the URL query mechanism (e.g., "?version={version > identifier}"). Can any members of the list shed some light on the intent > of these two mechanisms? This information is unavailable in either the > HTTP specification or RFC 1738 (Uniform Resource Locators). The advantage to using the URL parameter mechanism is that it allows you to specify a query against and old version of the page, of course :-) More to the point, URL queries are very common already, and I'd worry about specifying a standard name for a query that might conflict with somebody's existing query scripts. - David