Query-string values appended to a URL that modify or track the content it returns.
ID
SS-DF-048
Confidence
High · 85
Evidence
Established
Updated
2026-07-08
Definition
Query-string values appended to a URL that modify or track the content it returns.
URL parameters are the key-value pairs after a question mark in a URL, used for filtering, sorting, pagination, session state or tracking. They can create duplicate or near-duplicate content when different parameter combinations return the same or similar pages, complicating crawling and indexing. Handling them well involves consistent parameter ordering, canonical tags pointing to clean URLs, and avoiding parameters that generate needless crawlable variations.