diff --git a/code/common/model/src/main/java/nu/marginalia/model/id/UrlIdCodec.java b/code/common/model/src/main/java/nu/marginalia/model/id/UrlIdCodec.java
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..86c8deac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/code/common/model/src/main/java/nu/marginalia/model/id/UrlIdCodec.java
@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+package nu.marginalia.model.id;
+
+/** URL id encoding scheme, including an optional ranking part that's used in the indices and washed away
+ * outside.   The ranking part is put in the highest bits so that when we sort the documents by id, they're
+ * actually sorted by rank.  Next is the domain id part, which keeps documents from the same domain clustered.
+ * Finally is the document ordinal part, which is a non-unique sequence number for within the current set of
+ * documents loaded.  The same ID may be re-used over time as a new index is loaded.
+ * <p></p>
+ * <table>
+ *     <tr><th>Part</th><th>Bits</th><th>Cardinality</th></tr>
+ *     <tr>
+ *         <td>rank</td><td>6 bits</td><td>64</td>
+ *     </tr>
+ *     <tr>
+ *         <td>domain</td><td>31 bits</td><td>2 billion</td>
+ *     </tr>
+ *     <tr>
+ *         <td>document</td><td>26 bits</td><td>67 million</td>
+ *     </tr>
+ * </table>
+ *  <p></p>
+ *  Most significant bit is unused for now because I'm not routing Long.compareUnsigned() all over the codebase.
+ *  <i>If</i> we end up needing more domains, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
+ *
+ * <h2>Coding Scheme</h2>
+ * <code><pre>
+ * [    | rank | domain | url ]
+ *  0   1       6       38    64
+ * </pre></code>
+ */
+public class UrlIdCodec {
+    private static final long RANK_MASK = 0x8600_0000_0000_0000L;
+    private static final int DOCORD_MASK = 0x03FF_FFFF;
+
+    /** Encode a URL id without a ranking element */
+    public static long encodeId(int domainId, int documentOrdinal) {
+        domainId &= 0x7FFF_FFFFL;
+        documentOrdinal &= 0x03FF_FFFF;
+
+        return ((long) domainId << 26) | documentOrdinal;
+    }
+
+    /** Encode a URL id with the optional ranking part
+     *
+     * @param rank [0,1] the importance of the domain, low is good
+     * @param domainId
+     * @param documentOrdinal
+     * @return
+     */
+    public static long encodeIdWithRank(float rank, int domainId, int documentOrdinal) {
+        long rankPart = (int)(rank * (1<<6));
+
+        if (rankPart >= 64) rankPart = 63;
+        if (rankPart < 0) rankPart = 0;
+
+        return encodeId(domainId, documentOrdinal) | (rankPart << 57);
+    }
+
+    /** Add a ranking element to an existing combined URL id.
+     *
+     * @param rank [0,1] the importance of the domain, low is good
+     * @param urlId
+     */
+    public static long addRank(float rank, long urlId) {
+        long rankPart = (int)(rank * (1<<6));
+
+        if (rankPart >= 64) rankPart = 63;
+        if (rankPart < 0) rankPart = 0;
+
+        return (urlId&(~RANK_MASK)) | (rankPart << 57);
+    }
+
+    /** Extract the domain component from this URL id */
+    public static int getDomainId(long combinedId) {
+        return (int) ((combinedId >>> 26) & 0x7FFF_FFFFL);
+    }
+
+    /** Extract the document ordinal component from this URL id */
+    public static int getDocumentOrdinal(long combinedId) {
+        return (int) (combinedId & DOCORD_MASK);
+    }
+
+
+    /** Extract the document ordinal component from this URL id */
+    public static int getRank(long combinedId) {
+        return (int) (combinedId >>> 57);
+    }
+
+    /** Mask out the ranking element from this URL id */
+    public static long removeRank(long combinedId) {
+        return combinedId & (~RANK_MASK);
+    }
+
+}
diff --git a/code/common/model/src/test/java/nu/marginalia/model/id/UrlIdCodecTest.java b/code/common/model/src/test/java/nu/marginalia/model/id/UrlIdCodecTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..10fda63b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/code/common/model/src/test/java/nu/marginalia/model/id/UrlIdCodecTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+package nu.marginalia.model.id;
+
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
+
+import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.*;
+
+class UrlIdCodecTest {
+    @Test
+    public void testDocumentBounds() {
+        long encoded = UrlIdCodec.encodeId(0, ~0);
+        assertEquals(0, UrlIdCodec.getDomainId(encoded));
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void testDomainBounds() {
+        long encoded = UrlIdCodec.encodeId(~0, 0);
+        assertEquals(0x7FFF_FFFF, UrlIdCodec.getDomainId(encoded));
+        assertEquals(0, UrlIdCodec.getRank(encoded));
+        assertEquals(0, UrlIdCodec.getDocumentOrdinal(encoded));
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void testRankBounds() {
+        long encoded = UrlIdCodec.encodeIdWithRank(1.0f, 0, 0);
+        assertEquals(0, UrlIdCodec.getDomainId(encoded));
+        assertEquals(63, UrlIdCodec.getRank(encoded));
+        assertEquals(0, UrlIdCodec.getDocumentOrdinal(encoded));
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void testRankBoundsNeg() {
+        long encoded = UrlIdCodec.encodeIdWithRank(-1.0f, 0, 0);
+        assertEquals(0, UrlIdCodec.getDomainId(encoded));
+        assertEquals(0, UrlIdCodec.getRank(encoded));
+        assertEquals(0, UrlIdCodec.getDocumentOrdinal(encoded));
+    }
+}
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