1. A method for manipulating the presentation of an AJAX tree using an array representing the hierarchical path of a tree node comprising: receiving a user-request to expand a user-selected tree node of an AJAX tree, wherein the AJAX tree is presented within a Web page; determining a presence of the tree node in an existing path array for the AJAX tree, wherein the existing path array is stored in one of a Web cookie or a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) session variable; when the tree node is present in the existing path array, modifying the existing path array to reflect the user-selected tree node; when the tree node is absent from the existing path array, requesting a path array for the tree node from a Web server associated with the Web page; and invoking a path array handler to expand the AJAX tree, wherein each tree node of the AJAX tree expanded by the path array handler is contained within the existing path array.