diff --git a/src/Umbraco.Core/Xml/UmbracoXPathPathSyntaxParser.cs b/src/Umbraco.Core/Xml/UmbracoXPathPathSyntaxParser.cs
index 7802ddc438..016a3e45dd 100644
--- a/src/Umbraco.Core/Xml/UmbracoXPathPathSyntaxParser.cs
+++ b/src/Umbraco.Core/Xml/UmbracoXPathPathSyntaxParser.cs
@@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ namespace Umbraco.Core.Xml
                 return -1;
             });
 
-            const string rootXpath = "descendant::*[@id={0}]";
+            const string rootXpath = "id({0})";
 
             //parseable items:
             var vars = new Dictionary<string, Func<string, string>>();