Persistent identifier

A persistent identifier (PID) is a long-lived name for a digital object—such as a DOI, Handle, ARK, or ORCID iD—that is intended to remain stable even when storage locations change. PIDs are resolved through registries that update target URLs, reducing Link rot compared with raw filenames on personal sites.

Encyclopedic use

Citing a DOI for a paper or dataset is usually more durable than citing a publisher HTML page alone. PIDs complement, rather than replace, Web archiving of open web resources that lack formal identifiers.

See also

• Citation
• Cool URI
• Reference rot

Sources

• DOI Foundation and ARK Alliance documentation.
• Scholarly-communication primers on PIDs.