A Beginner’s Guide to URL Parameters

URL parameters and how they affect SEO

While URL parameters are invaluable in the hands of experienced SEO professionals, they often present serious challenges to your website’s rankings.

In this guide, we share the most common SEO issues to watch out for when working with URL parameters.

But before that, let’s go over some basics.

What are URL parameters?

URL parameters (also known as query strings or URL query parameters) are elements inserted into your URLs to help you filter and organize content. Or implement tracking on your website.

To identify a URL parameter, look at the part of the URL that comes after a question mark (?).

URL parameters include a key and a value separated by an equal sign (=). Multiple parameters are then separated by an ampersand (&).

A complete URL string with parameters looks like this:

In the example above there are two parameters:

1. “Color” with the value “blue”
2. “Sort” with the value “newest”

It filters a web page to display products that are blue and ranks them by the most recent.

URL parameters will vary depending on the specific keys and values. And can include many different combinations.

But the basic structure (shown below) will always be something like “https//www.domain.com/page?key1=value1&key2=value2”.

And here’s what each part means:

• Key 1: First variable name
• Key 2: Second variable name
• Value1: First property value
• Value2: Second property value
• ?: Query string start
• =: Value separator
• &: Parameter...