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ARKs (Archival Resource Keys) are high-functioning identifiers that lead you to things and to descriptions of those things. For example, this ARK
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https://n2t.net/ark:/67531/metadc107835/
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gets to a dissertation, and adding a '?' to the ARK gets you to its description:
to get a description: https://n2t.net/ark:/67531/metadc107835/?
What's an identifier?
On the internet, an identifier is a URL, or part of a URL. For example, this basic ARK identifier,
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The average lifetime of a URL has been said to be 44 days. At the end of its life, a published URL will give you the dreaded 404 Not Found error. As irritating as that is for most of us, it's a disaster for libraries, archives, museums, and other memory organizations. They want to publish persistent identifiers, which should in principle continue to work far into the future. Accurately predicting the future is, of course, not possible, but persistent identifiers can help.
How do ARKs differ from DOIs, Handles, PURLs, and URNs?
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UUIDs are globally unique, 37-character strings that are easy to generate but only become usable as web addresses when made part of a URL, ARK, DOI, etc. They look like, for example,
xxxx https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/3c2e39526-e0c3-41ae-be4f-07558a9458eb