What Are URL
Parameters?
URL parameters are elements inserted in your URLs
to help you filter and organize content or track
information on your website.
1 To identify a URL parameter, refer
3 Multiple parameters
to the portion of the URL that comes after are each then separated
a question mark (?) by an ampersand (&)
2 URL parameters are made of a key and
a value, separated by an equal sign (=)
start of
separator
parameters
https//www.example.com/widgets?colour=blue&sort=newest
key value
Common Uses for URL Parameters
Tracking UTM codes used
?utm_content=bottom%20cta%20button
for traffic tracking from
?utm_source=newsletter123&utm_medium=email
ads and campaigns ?sessionID=32764
Reordering Ordering items according
?sort=price_ascending
?rank=newest
to specific parameters ?order=highest-rated
Searching To find results on a site’s
?search=search-term
?s=search-term
internal search engine ?query=search-term ?q=search-term
Identifying Sorting pages
?product=small-blue-shoes
of a gallery by size,
?category=sneakers
category etc. ?productid=xyz
Paginating To segment content on
?page=2 ?pageindex=2 ?p=2
pages for ecommerce shops
Translating Adding the language name
?lang=en ?language=de
to the end of a URL string
Filtering To filter distinct fields:
?filter=Store/Territory eq 'NC'
?type=yellow
territory, event type etc. ?price-range=20-50
When URL Parameters Become
an SEO Issue
1 2 3
Duplicate
Loss in crawl
Keyword
content budget cannibalization
4 5
Diluted ranking
Poor URL
signals readability
Tips:
In the Site Audit tool settings, you’ll find a step to list the parameters URLs
to ignore during a crawl (UTMs, page, language etc.)