URL parameters add information after a “?” in URLs (tracking codes, filters, sessions). Manage them properly to avoid duplicate content – use canonical tags or parameter handling in Google Search Console.
Are you feeling frustrated because your website traffic is flatlining even though you are creating great content? I totally get that sinking feeling when your hard work does not rank well on Google.
I have worked in this space for 15 years and learned that tiny details often make the biggest difference in SEO.
Today, I am sharing the secret about What are URL parameters? and how to use them for massive SEO wins.
Get ready for useful, actionable tips that will help you clean up your website and finally see those organic rankings climb.
What are URL parameters? The Friendly Definition
Let us start with the basics, simply answering, “What are URL parameters?”
Think of URL parameters as little notes added to the end of a web address, starting with a question mark (?). These notes pass extra information to the website server, like asking it to show only red shoes or sort a list by price.
For example, a URL might look like example.com/products?color=red&sort=price.
The part after the question mark is the parameter, and it has a “key” (like color) and a “value” (like red).
CMS Impact: How Different Platforms Handle URL Parameters
How you handle parameters changes a lot depending on the system you use to build your website.
Different Content Management Systems (CMS) have unique ways of managing these technical details, which affects your SEO work.
WordPress
WordPress is super flexible, but it often creates parameters for archives, search results, or pagination, like ?paged=2.
I rely heavily on SEO plugins like Yoast or Rank Math to add canonical tags, which tell Google which version is the “real” page.
You have the most control here, but you must be proactive about parameter settings to avoid duplicate content problems.
Shopify
Shopify is an ecommerce powerhouse, and it uses parameters constantly for filtering and sorting products, for example, /collections/t-shirts?sort_by=price-ascending.
The platform generally handles canonical tags well, but for complex filters, you must review its settings or use apps to manage parameter indexing.
Always watch for duplicate pages that search engines might mistakenly crawl and index.
Wix
Wix is user-friendly, but its parameter control can be more limited, especially for advanced technical SEO.
Wix’s built-in tools generally manage the basic SEO structure for you.
For custom campaign tracking, which uses parameters like UTM tags, you can still apply them easily without worrying about breaking your site.
Webflow
Webflow gives you excellent control over your URL structure, letting you choose clean URLs over messy, parameterized ones.
While it uses parameters for things like site search (/search?query=shoes), the platform’s clean code base minimizes unwanted parameter issues.
This hands-on approach is fantastic for technical SEO experts who want full command of their website’s indexing.
Custom CMS
With a custom CMS, you have complete power, but you also own all the responsibility.
We must manually implement canonical tags, set up robots.txt files, and configure server rules to manage parameters.
This requires a skilled developer but allows for perfectly optimized, parameter-handling rules.
Industry Applications: Using Parameters for Success
Different businesses use URL parameters for unique and important reasons.
We use them to serve a better user experience or to gather marketing data.
Ecommerce
Ecommerce sites live and breathe URL parameters for product filtering, like showing items by size, price, or brand.
The key SEO challenge is preventing search engines from seeing every filter combination as a new, low-quality page.
I recommend using canonical tags to point all filtered views back to the main category page, saving your SEO value.
Local Businesses
Local businesses often use parameters for simple things like tracking which local ad or social media post drove a website visit.
You can add UTM parameters (like ?utm_source=facebook) to your main website URL for this purpose.
These passive parameters do not change the page content, so they usually have minimal SEO risk.
SaaS (Software as a Service)
SaaS companies use URL parameters to track user sign-up funnels and different marketing campaigns effectively.
They might use parameters to show personalized page content or to test different landing page designs (A/B testing).
Be careful that dynamically generated content does not create crawl issues or dilute your main page’s SEO strength.
Blogs
For blogs, parameters are most often seen in pagination (?page=3) or in on-site search results (?s=my+query).
Pagination needs careful canonicalization, pointing older pages to the main series or using ‘noindex’ for low-value search result pages.
I always ensure my core blog content pages do not have unnecessary parameters that could confuse search engines.
FAQ: Common Questions about URL Parameters and SEO
Q: Do URL parameters always hurt my SEO?
A: Not at all, but they can create problems if you do not manage them correctly. The main issue is duplicate content, where search engines see many versions of the same page.
I use canonical tags and Google Search Console to tell search engines which parameter versions they should ignore.
Q: What is the difference between active and passive parameters?
A: Active parameters change the content you see, like sorting a product list (?sort=newest).
Passive parameters are just for tracking and do not change the content, like a UTM code (?utm_source=email).
Q: How can I tell Google not to crawl a URL with parameters?
A: The safest way is to use a canonical tag on the parameterized URL, pointing it to the clean, preferred version.
For parameters that generate zero-value pages, I might use the robots.txt file to block crawling, saving my crawl budget for important pages.
