Thanks for your help w/ this back in 2019. Now, in the 2021 environment, I'm returning to the goal of providing stable links to open-data items.
The URL that appears in the address bar when finding and selecting an ArcGIS Online feature-layer-based item has a pattern that goes like this <host>/datasets/<a string that obviously comes from the item's title>/explore?location=....... . I could share/link that URL as-is; however, is it guaranteed to be stable? What happens if the item's title string is altered?
When I access an item via the title-based URL, the Info Updated date and the Published Date have dates that are the same as in the item's metadata--which is what I want.
In Hub documentation, I found this page on supported content--a page that has clues on URL routes to content. According to that page, it looks like the URL pattern for a stable URL would be <host>/datasets/<id>/explore.
However, when I follow the <host>/datasets/<id>/explore pattern, the Info Updated date and the Published Date don't show dates from the item's metadata; they show dates that look like system dates (Published Date appears to be when the item was born in the ArcGIS Online system, not the published date in the item's metadata from when the dataset was born on a different platform).
When I try a similar id-based pattern that appends an _<layer ID> to the id (for example, <host>/datasets/<id>_0/explore for layer number 0 in the feature service), the Info Updated date and the Published Date do show dates that are in the item's metadata--which, again, is what I want.
To make note, I have observed that the Data Updated date drifts a little between these approaches, but not by more than a few days (maybe a lag?). We use the FGDC CSDGM metadata style. There's no direct FGDC CSDGM equivalent to Data Updated, and Data Updated automatically changes when the layer's data is reloaded/changed--which is what I want; I want Data Updated to be system-generated and the other two dates (Info Updated and Published Date) to show as they are in the item's metadata.
With my preference for metadata dates, what is the best way to provide/link stable URLs in the current environment?