Understanding my Account ID Vs. My Villa IDs

Many perceptive owners have noticed that more than one numeric ID appears in their page links. Unfortunately, noticing those IDs has caused some confusion with members… explaining what those numbers mean and why there are more than one number for each member is the intent of this page.

Since all of the actual information on our site is stored in a database program, we have to have a way to retrieve information. The way we do this is by assigning unique IDs to objects stored in the database.

Every member on our site has its own unique ID. For the most part you won’t see your numeric ID in too many places—but there are some places where you will see it. For example, if you look at the address bar when you’ve clicked “My Villas” in your Villas Control Panel, you will see your user ID. Likewise, your RSS Enquiry link includes your user ID.

Your user ID is not the same number as your villa ID(s). Each new villa on the site has its own ID. You may have several villa IDs because you can have several villas assigned to your account. (In our database, your villa contains your unique user ID so that the site knows that your user account owns that villa). You can see the villa ID in directory pages as a Ref #. You can also see your villa’s ID in the address bar when viewing your villa’s main page.

There are other things in the site that have unique IDs, such as articles and images.

What decides whether your User ID or your Villa ID appears in the URL (address bar of your browser) is whether the page you are looking at is for a specific villa or whether the page is for your entire account regardless of the villa. Your villa ID will appear for your slideshow pages, villa page, availability page and direct enquiries. Your User account ID will show for emailing you, in you’re My Villas Page (listing all your villas), your RSS Feed Enquiry link and your guestbook.