Dear Tech Guru

Dear Tech Guru,

Recently a friend shared a tweet: There are two types of people. Those who delete the question mark and everything to the right of it in shared URLs and those who have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m one of those people who have no idea what the tweet is talking about. What is everything to the right of the question mark, and should I delete it?

Signed,

U__R__L__

Dear U__R__L__

Great question! Many of us know that a URL is a web address that will take us to a webpage. For example, if you type “mcl.org” into a search browser’s address bar, it will take you to the library’s website. This simple URL is called a domain; everything after the domain is directions to the correct file or page on a website. Take, for example, this page with information on Women’s History Month programs - mcl.org/womens-history-month/. 

Everything between the two forward slashes (/) tells the web browser which specific page to direct you to.

If you wanted to sign up for one of those events, you would click on the date. Let’s sign up for the She Persisted Book Talk on Tuesday, March 21, at 4 pm. That opens up the registration form here - https://www.eventkeeper.com/code/ekform.cfm?curOrg=MCL&curID=630096

You’ll see in this URL the questioned question mark. A question mark is used in a few different ways. In the above URL, it is the start of the query string. A query string means that everything to the right is used to find a specific object or, in this case, form.

You can also see this when you search our library catalog.

This is the URL for our catalog - https://merl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/mcl/

If I search Jane Austen, you will see the question mark and the query - https://merl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/mcl/search/results?qu=Jane+Austen&te=

If I narrow down my search with the facets on the left side of the page to DVDs, you will see the URL changes to add that extra search information - https://merl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/mcl/search/results?qu=Jane+Austen&qf=FORMAT%09Format%09VIDEODISC%09Video+disc

In these situations, you want to keep everything to the right of the question mark. 

The second way a question mark can be used in a URL is what is referenced in the tweet: when you share a news article or an item you found online shopping. Anytime you click on those share buttons on a website, extra information is shared in the URL that gathers data to send back to the creator of the original basic URL.

For this example, I’m going to use one of the NextReads Newsletters (you can find them here - https://mcl.org/resources/literary-criticism-and-readers-advisory/nextreads/)

Let’s click on the MCLS Virtual Programs: February 2023 issue. This opens up the newsletter and shows me this URL - https://www.libraryaware.com/998/NewsletterIssues/ViewIssue/844d9c3f-ff72-422b-9ce8-e890697791e6?postId=b0d4ad20-06da-4188-88b8-cbf22f9a25c6

The highlighted part of the URL is the part that can be deleted. This part of the URL sends back information that we can use here in the IT Department to see how our newsletters are doing once we send them out. When I look at the statistics, this newsletter issue was opened 703 times, and there were 106 clicks on links within the newsletter.

Another common place you’ll see this question mark usage is on social media. Anytime someone posts a URL, the extra information gets added. 

Here’s an example from our Facebook page.

When I click on that URL, it opens our webpage with this URL - https://mcl.org/events/book-clubs/?fbclid=IwAR1p3a2EIVy1sGBT1m36Lb1F7sIO59U7MdjBg1t4tShtDA8nEAtmytHrXLQ

This extra information tells us that you got to this webpage from Facebook. These statistics help the library know if our marketing and social media posts are reaching our patrons. Other big companies use this information to push targeted ads and to gather information about the people clicking the links or searching a specific website. 

This is the information that the tweet was talking about; if you want to share this URL with a friend, you may copy and paste it into a text and hit send. The other people will paste the URL and remove all this extra information to the right of the question mark before hitting send.

It’s really up to you if you want to be a person who deletes everything to the right in a sharable URL or if you don’t.

Happy Sharing!

 - by Tech Guru Amelia R., Information Technology Department