Kind of unrelated; But maybe someone knows.

[Michael Shadle]

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 4:43 PM, David J. <david at styleflare.com> wrote:

> I was wondering why some sites have
>
> <script src="path/to/javascript.js?432532432"></script>
>
> What is the "?432532432" or whatever used for? Is it a versioning thing.
>
> I see it on many of the bigger sites.
>
> <link href="/css/layout.css?1291917579" media="all" rel="stylesheet">
>
> Thanks for any info.

Forces the user's browser to treat the same on the server as a
different one. Or, a lot of the time, CDNs - a technique known as
"cache busting"

It will force a browser and most CDNs to re-cache the file as a fresh
copy as it includes the query string as part of the key. Otherwise due
to Expires headers, CDNs and other caching behavior, clients wouldn't
know that a new copy of a specific file might be fresh.