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I’ve banned query strings

chrismorgan.info

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Re: I’ve banned query strings

#41

Post by odie5533 »

cortesoft wrote: post #28
humodz wrote: post #23

The tone of this and Chris's post gives me the impression that it's harmful to include these query parameters, but I don't understand how. Could someone elucidate me? I understand it can mangle some URLs and that's good enough reason not do it, but even then it seems like a minor incovenience.

You can read some of the issues people have had with this by reading up on the http referer header: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer There are a lot of reasons I might not want a site to know where I came from to get to their site. It is basically sharing your browsing history with the site you are visiting. Because of this, there have been a lot of updates to the http referer header, with restrictions on w…

If I send out an email campaign, I can't use custom http headers to know that a user arrived from the newsletter.

Re: I’ve banned query strings

#42

Post by notlive »

Referrer is sometimes nice to know. If your site gets a traffic spike from an email newsletter that traffic won't correctly identify the source in the http headers.

No qualms with OP, your site your rules.

Re: I’ve banned query strings

#43

Post by grg0 »

odie5533 wrote: post #41
cortesoft wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can read some of the issues people have had with this by reading up on the http referer header: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer There are a lot of reasons I might not want a site to know where I came from to get to their site. It is basically sharing your browsing history with the site you are visiting. Because of this, there have been a lot of updates to the http referer header, with restrictions on w…

If I send out an email campaign, I can't use custom http headers to know that a user arrived from the newsletter.

Do you really need to? Basic statistics will tell you if the email campaign had any significant effect on site visits.

Re: I’ve banned query strings

#44

Post by legitster »

humodz wrote: post #23

The tone of this and Chris's post gives me the impression that it's harmful to include these query parameters, but I don't understand how. Could someone elucidate me? I understand it can mangle some URLs and that's good enough reason not do it, but even then it seems like a minor incovenience.

What's interesting is that none of these sites have a "search" feature. Which is an important accessibility feature and a clear and legitimate use case for a query string.

Re: I’ve banned query strings

#45

Post by peesem »

edit: not true https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48077990

"I don’t like people adding tracking stuff to URLs" and "You abuse your users by adding that to the link" and "no unauthorised query strings" and "At present I don’t use any query strings" but for some reason ?igsh, which i'm pretty sure is an instagram tracking parameter, is allowed. weird

Re: I’ve banned query strings

#46

Post by phoronixrly »

legitster wrote: post #35
phoronixrly wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I have a couple - the users did not agree on being tracked (these query params are tracking information), and the site administrator does not want incoming traffic to be tracked. I know the latter can be hard to understand, but I for example sure as hell do not want to have any info in my logs that can be used to harm my users. On a more personal note, I hate it when I go to copy a link to send via a message, and…

>(these query params are tracking information) Query strings are useful for way more than just tracking. Saving and servicing search queries is a way more common use case. So assuming it's only useful for tracking is very misleading. Query strings are probably the least invasive tracking. They are transparent, obvious, and anonymous. Users are free to strip out and edit query strings if they don't want them. More to…

Thank you for explaining to me that query parameters can be used for other purposes apart from tracking. The articles in question though, are railing against query parameters being abused for tracking purposes - passing referers (sic) and UTM by adding them to URLs of sites that neither process them, nor want them.

Re: I’ve banned query strings

#47

Post by maccard »

grg0 wrote: post #43
odie5533 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I send out an email campaign, I can't use custom http headers to know that a user arrived from the newsletter.

Do you really need to? Basic statistics will tell you if the email campaign had any significant effect on site visits.

If I release a video and send an email newsletter at the same time, which one caused the traffic increase? Should I invest in making more videos of sending more emails?

Re: I’ve banned query strings

#48

Post by dredmorbius »

franciscop wrote: post #19
culi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are addons to remove unnecessary params from the worst offending sites: https://www.google.com/search?q=clearurls+addon

Thanks for removing the rest on that google link, the one I get after switching to "images" and back to "web" is this monstrosity: https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&sca_esv=8061bd9cb1... Edit: which luckily and sensibly Hacker News cuts short since it's 463 characters

You can post the string as text (indent by 2+ spaces) to avoid that trimming.

Since the purpose is to show the full URL with trackers and other cruft, that's sensible here:

  https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&sca_esv=8061bd9cb19cd450&sxsrf=ANbL-n7S60ZBdf0lh5kQ8RojJdQpnM0S5w:1778353180297&q=clearurls+addon&source=lnms&fbs=ADc_l-aN0CWEZBOHjofHoaMMDiKpeTF8ggB1qASWZfpybz5TQZmqMiWOgtbP_iLwZE3_BsqFrIkjQk30pNpcyOJjgYT1NYhSr_eVWusunSdIYLAa1WWhJm7VPvRsNUkHss5YZDSVhzEth7KnRsP0kwdL-3ylxxDz_j5WL-QtjJdzQePIWAeCwn7532w9WuSzSqnY0V2tn342eEk_wDwxk45MDY_JuA-5CA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjH3uLs8ayUAxUghP0HHVXuOeIQ0pQJegQICxAB&biw=1296&bih=711&dpr=2.22
And yeah, that's pretty awful.

In conclusion, Google must be destroyed.

Re: I’ve banned query strings

#49

Post by zahlman »

peesem wrote: post #45

edit: not true https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48077990 "I don’t like people adding tracking stuff to URLs" and "You abuse your users by adding that to the link" and "no unauthorised query strings" and "At present I don’t use any query strings" but for some reason ?igsh, which i'm pretty sure is an instagram tracking parameter, is allowed. weird

?igsh doesn't get through for me, and I don't see any links on the page including it.
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