diff --git a/sphinxcontrib/confluencebuilder/publisher.py b/sphinxcontrib/confluencebuilder/publisher.py
index 160a130f..38f31cf8 100644
--- a/sphinxcontrib/confluencebuilder/publisher.py
+++ b/sphinxcontrib/confluencebuilder/publisher.py
@@ -550,12 +550,13 @@ def get_page(self, page_name, expand='version', status='current'):
                 'title': page_name,
             })
         else:
-            rsp = self.rest.get(f'{self.APIV1}content', {
-                'type': 'page',
-                'spaceKey': self.space_key,
-                'title': page_name,
-                'status': status,
-                'expand': expand,
+            # Workaround for https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFSERVER-57639:
+            # Hitting the base Content API endpoint can cause performance problem for large instances
+            rsp = self.rest.get(f'{self.APIV1}content/search', {
+                "cql": f"title='{page_name}'",
+                "cqlcontext": json.dumps({"contentStatuses": [status], "spaceKey": self.space_key}),
+                "expand": ["version"],
+                "limit": 1
             })
 
         if rsp['results']:
diff --git a/sphinxcontrib/confluencebuilder/storage/translator.py b/sphinxcontrib/confluencebuilder/storage/translator.py
index ef00cdb9..e48e74a3 100644
--- a/sphinxcontrib/confluencebuilder/storage/translator.py
+++ b/sphinxcontrib/confluencebuilder/storage/translator.py
@@ -1279,6 +1279,13 @@ def _visit_reference_intern_id(self, node):
         # identifier value instead
         target = self.state.target(anchorname)
         if target:
+            # Johannes Loibl: If multiple anchors are generated for the same reference (e.g. when an explicit reference
+            # is placed directly before a heading, Sphinx will generate two anchors and increase the suffix counter,
+            # e.g. HEADING, HEADING.1, HEADING.2, ... . This leads to a wrong naming of the final anchor link,
+            # since the heading can only be accessed via the root name (HEADING in this case).
+            # So we have to strip off the number suffix
+            if "." in target:
+                target = target.split(".")[0]
             anchor_value = target
             anchor_value = self.encode(anchor_value)
         else: