A method and apparatus that automatically converts a universal resource locator that specifies a location for a publication into a standard publication identifier that identifies the publication uses a plurality of parser rules, each parser rule being adapted to extract data fields for a particular form of universal resource locator. One of the parser rules is selected based on a domain in the universal resource locator and used to parse the universal resource locator to generate data field values. A plurality of translation rules are used, each translation rule accepting one or more data fields as inputs. When the generated data field values match the inputs of a translation rule, that translation rule is used to create a standard publication identifier.