There is a specific feeling that arrives about four seconds into a portfolio: a small flicker of recognition, quickly overwritten by delight. You have found someone wonderful. You have also found them before, and your brain has decided not to mention it.
Rediscovery feels like taste
It is flattering. You are drawn to the same work twice, which means your eye is consistent. Consistency is genuinely worth something. It is just an expensive way to demonstrate it, given that the first discovery cost you an evening and produced nothing.
Consistency without capture is a treadmill
The same taste, applied to the same internet, finds the same people repeatedly. Without capture, every pass is full price. With capture, the second encounter costs nothing because it never happens.
The cost is the gap between the two finds
Between the first discovery and the second, that artist was available and you were looking for someone. Both facts were true at the same time, in different rooms, with no way to connect them. That gap is where projects get staffed with almost-right people.
They may not be available next time
Careers move. The artist you rediscover in November may have signed exclusively somewhere in August. Rediscovery is not a second chance; it is a notification that you missed the first one.
Let the system flag the repeat
Saving by profile URL means the second save merges with the first rather than creating a twin. Instead of a fresh thrill you get something more useful: a record saying you found this person in March, rated them four stars, and noted that they were free in the spring.
Slightly less romantic, considerably more employable
The flicker of familiarity is nicer than a merge notification. The merge notification is the one that gets someone hired.