What's the purpose of a long webpage address?

[atikovi]

Just an example but the original address shows as:

https://www.amazon.com/Performance-Tool-20106-Spark-Socket/dp/B00HFLFVG0/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=177806239870&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9007783&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=8072154081344989778&hvtargid=kwd-30075934818&hydadcr=1644_9901541&keywords=magnetic%2Bspark%2Bplug%2Bsockets&qid=1682512495&sr=8-1&th=1

But I can keep shortening it:

https://www.amazon.com/Performance-Tool-20106-Spark-Socket/dp/B00HFLFVG0/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=177806239870&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9007783&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=8072154081344989778&hvtargid=kwd-30075934818&hydadcr=

or

https://www.amazon.com/Performance-Tool-20106-Spark-Socket/dp/B00HFLFVG0/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=177806239870&hvdev=c&hvlocphy

or

https://www.amazon.com/Performance-Tool-20106-Spark-Socket/dp/B00HFLFVG0/ref=

and it still works. What's all the extra characters for and how can you find out what minimum amount of characters will work without trial and error to copy the link?

 

[brianl703]

It's for tracking.

 

[slacktide_bitog]

The minimum amount of characters that will work for an Amazon product:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HFLFVG0

amazon,com itself, then the letters "dp" then the ASIN (a product number assigned by Amazon)

 

[mk378]

Generally you can remove the question mark and everything after it. The things after the '?' are called GET parameters, they tell the website exactly how you arrived at the page. If you are posting the link you should not include this.

 

[hemioiler]

Generally you can remove the question mark and everything after it. The things after the '?' are called GET parameters, they tell the website exactly how you arrived at the page. If you are posting the link you should not include this.

In amazon's case perhaps, but not a general rule. The vast majority of pages will not work when you remove the GET params.

 

[wwillson]

Anything after the "?" is call a query string.

Query string - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[wwillson]

In amazon's case perhaps, but not a general rule. The vast majority of pages will not work when you remove the GET params.

I often remove the query string from Amazon link here on BITOG, because they are so long and not necessary. If you remove the ? and everything to the right, the URL will work fine.

 

[hemioiler]

I often remove the query string from Amazon link here on BITOG, because they are so long and not necessary. If you remove the ? and everything to the right, the URL will work fine.

Yes, some sites like Amazon use a more REST-y url by using "/"s; check out this forum's url for example, no query string but that's because the query params are separated by slashes or the site only needs one little id or something like that which is part of the page name.

But as a general rule, people shouldn't be removing params (stuff after the ?) from their urls. Some of it is advertising or other metadata, but some of it is critical and you may get (subtly) different content on your page or an error message if you do that.

 

[Shel_B]

In amazon's case perhaps, but not a general rule. The vast majority of pages will not work when you remove the GET params.

Strange. I've been removing everything after the "?" for years on many, many addresses, and none have failed to work and arrive at the proper location.

 

[LostInTransit]

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• Bitly for the best all-around URL shortener
• Rebrandly for an alternative to Bitly
• TinyURL for free, fast, and anonymous short URLs
• BL.INK for business owners
• URL Shortener by Zapier for automatically creating short links
• Short.io for sending different visitors different links

 

[hemioiler]

Strange. I've been removing everything after the "?" for years on many, many addresses, and none have failed to work and arrive at the proper location.

The GET params can be extremely important depending on the site and/or what you're removing. On the sites I've written, I can't think of a single param that you can remove without getting an error message (we don't do tracking or metadata in our URLs so that just leaves critical data where the web page/site absolutely needs that information).

 

[y_p_w]

Strange. I've been removing everything after the "?" for years on many, many addresses, and none have failed to work and arrive at the proper location.

Try it with YouTube.

 

[wwillson]

check out this forum's url for example, no query string but that's because the query params are separated by slashes or the site only needs one little id or something like that which is part of the page name.

The URLs you see for BITOG are simply the path to either the thread or the post within the thread. If you remove them, you won't arrive where the original URL was pointing.

 

[hemioiler]

Simple example, 3 different URLS after the ?

https://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html?_fro...acat=2984&LH_TitleDesc=0&LH_PrefLoc=2&_sop=10
https://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313&_nkw=oil+filter&_sacat=0
https://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html

The first finds oil filters in the "baby" category and sorts results by "newly listed".
The second link finds oil filters in no category and sorts by "best match"
The third (removing everything after ?) gives you nothing because you stripped the information ebay needs to know what you're searching for.

 

[hemioiler]

The URLs you see for BITOG are simply the path to either the thread or the post within the thread. If you remove them, you won't arrive where the original URL was pointing.

Yes. That's because this specific forum software uses the path to embed it's query params instead of a query string. But you can't make a general rule and say that it's fine to just strip all query params from any site you visit. It depends on the site, and which params you end up removing.

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

The 6 best URL shortener services​

• Bitly for the best all-around URL shortener
• Rebrandly for an alternative to Bitly
• TinyURL for free, fast, and anonymous short URLs
• BL.INK for business owners
• URL Shortener by Zapier for automatically creating short links
• Short.io for sending different visitors different links

One surefire way to make sure I DON'T click on a link is to use a URL shortener service. If I don't know exactly where it's going, I'm not clicking on it.

 

[BigTimeTA]

Firefox ETP and TCP will prevent all forms of tracking. Using uBlock Origin on Firefox will change the web as you know it as well. Brave is not far behind regarding privacy, easy to use out of the box if you're not into getting deep in the settings.

 

[uc50ic4more]

FWIW, 100% of the time I use anything like this it is to track the efficacy of engagement, not anything from you as a user. e.g.:

Let's say I want to try out two different graphics announcing a client's Super Awesome New Product. I'll use this link for one graphic:

ourawesomeproducts.com/superawesomenewproduct/?=graphic1

... and this for the other:

ourawesomeproducts.com/superawesomenewproduct/?=graphic2

This makes it ridiculously simple to A/B which graphic garnered more engagement. It passes along no uniquely-identifying information from the user.

In more sophisticated situations, I may be able to customize the link that I have sent you, @atikovi , in a mass email such that the link might look like this **only** in your email:

ourawesomeproducts.com/superawesomenewproduct/?=atikovi

... at which point I now know that YOU clicked on this.

 

[atikovi]

In more sophisticated situations, I may be able to customize the link that I have sent you, @atikovi , in a mass email such that the link might look like this **only** in your email:

ourawesomeproducts.com/superawesomenewproduct/?=atikovi

... at which point I now know that YOU clicked on this.

But these are webpages not emails. How would you know who clicks on your webpage from that?

 

[uc50ic4more]

But these are webpages not emails. How would you know who clicks on your webpage from that?

There are a bazillion different applications for this method. Typically, I might see something like this when I click on a link on a site's homepage. So I start here:

atikovisawesomesite.com

... and I click on "ANNOUNCEMENT: AWESOME NEW PRODUCT!!!" which leads to the awesomenewproduct.html page. The ensuing URL might read:

atikovisawesomesite.com/awesomenewproduct.html?ref=home_page

("ref" might be a short form for "referral") This would let whomever is in charge of their analytics know that at least that visitor landed on the awesomenewproduct.html page from the home page. I might append these strings also to account for ads. Check these out:

atikovisawesomesite.com/awesomenewproduct.html?ref=bitog
atikovisawesomesite.com/awesomenewproduct.html?ref=google_ads
atikovisawesomesite.com/awesomenewproduct.html?ref=my_little_pony_forums

Whenever you click on a web site from Facebook you'll see:

atikovisawesomesite.com/awesomenewproduct.html?fbclid=[insanely long string]
I'll presume "fbclid" to be short for "Facebook Click ID". This is how they track how many clicks they generated for you (which informs the final tally when the bill comes due if you've paid for that exposure.)

You'll see "utm" characters in these things a lot as well. That stands for [something] Tracking Module and serves the same purposes.

EDIT: I want to be clear by re-stating: This is much more commonly used to track where, when and how traffic is generated as opposed to tracking YOU as a visitor. Web sites and applications are trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. If they're lucky and good, you'll sign up for an account and they'll then have all the information about you they need in order to begin collecting more. :^)