pseudo-random URL generation

Question

I'm writing python code to parse data from http://www.istockphoto.com/ and it seems like the URL that is generated from a search seems to be pseudo-random; For example if you do a 'photos' search for 'meow' you get the URL: http://www.istockphoto.com/search/text/meow/filetype/photos/source/basic#e2430b3

I've looked at the source code carefully, but since I don't know much about PHP/javascript (I assume that's how the URL is being generated), I can't figure out exactly which lines of code are generating this URL. Could someone please point me in the right direction and show me which lines of code are responsible for the URL?

Answer 1

It's not a (pseudo-)random url, as the first part is clearly unique for your search: http://www.istockphoto.com/search/text/meow/filetype/photos/source/basic

The last part, #e2430b3 is just an anchor to somewhere on the page, or used by some scripts. It is not used by the query, as you can type the url without this part and it works the same.

This part perhaps can be used by the server as a cache identifier, to speed up repetitive requests.