Have you ever tried to copy or save a link that seemed to contain a lot of unnecessary information? It may be because it’s a campaign link, designed to let webmasters (and marketing personnel) know how users reached the page. Other times, a session ID is appended to a link, in which case using the same link later won’t work.
If you are sharing a link, you want to make sure it’s as clean as possible so the person you are sharing it with can use it without issue.
Manual Method
Here is an example of an Amazon link that includes unneeded information:
As a rule of thumb, you only need to keep up to the first question mark. Here is the clean version of the link above: https://www.amazon.com/TILISMA-Book-Page-Holder-Handmade/dp/B085HSJ51F/ref=sr_1_3
The clean version is all that is needed to retrieve the page. The rest of the link includes parameters that don’t affect page load.
This doesn’t always work, though. In our event calendar, each question mark adds a filter. Here is what a link to all of the adult programs looks like: https://events.colonielibrary.org/events/month?age_groups%5B4%5D=4. If we removed the question mark and everything after it, it would show the same calendar, but it would no longer be limited to adult events.
Use a Tool
If you use Mozilla’s Firefox browser (or Brave browser), there is a built-in tool for grabbing clean links. In this example, I right-clicked the Amazon Prime link:
There are also Google Chrome extensions and Microsoft Edge extensions available that add the ability to copy a clean link. Be sure to research the reputation of the extension and its developer before installing any extensions in your browser.
Summary
When sharing links, it’s best to strip unneeded text from the URL. This ensures the link will work without extra tracking parameters embedded.
