What is the “Question Mark in URL” Error in the Site Audit?
The “question mark in URL” error in a site audit typically refers to issues with hyperlinks on a website that contain unnecessary or poorly constructed query parameters. These issues can affect SEO, site performance, and user experience. Here are the common causes and implications of this error:
Duplicate Content
URLs with different query parameters can lead to duplicate content, where the same content is accessible through multiple web addresses. This can confuse search engines and dilute the ranking power of your pages.
Unnecessary Parameters
Sometimes URLs contain unnecessary query parameters that do not affect the content of the page. These can create unnecessary link variations and complicate site management.
Crawl Budget
Search engines have a limited crawl budget for each site. If your site has many URLs with unnecessary query parameters, it can waste this budget and prevent important pages from being indexed.
Analytics Tracking Issues
URLs with different query parameters can fragment data in analytics tools, making it harder to track user behavior accurately.
Another question mark, however, will be just a literal question mark. Although having a second question mark is not invalid, it may be because of an unknown issue. To see if there’s a problem, you can use a URL inspection tool. Feel free to watch the following video by Daniel Waisberg from Google to learn more about this tool and how you can use it to get your web address’ status.
One of the most common problems when using question marks is that query components find it difficult to identify the URL’s primary function, leading to wrong site pages.
Read our article to learn more about URLs and how to make them SEO-friendly.
What Triggers This Issue?
The “question mark in URL” issue is typically triggered by several factors related to how hyperlinks are generated, structured, and managed on a website. Here are some common triggers:
1. Dynamic URL Generation
Many websites, especially those built with content management systems (CMS) or using dynamic content, generate URLs with query parameters to deliver specific content. For example:
- Search results pages: https://example.com/search?query=keyword
- Filtered product listings: https://example.com/products?category=shoes&color=red
2. Tracking Parameters
Tracking and analytics tools often append query parameters to URLs for monitoring purposes. For example:
- Campaign tracking: https://example.com/page?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring_sale
- Session IDs: https://example.com/page?session_id=abc123
3. User-Generated Content
User interactions that generate URLs with parameters, such as comments, forum posts, or reviews, can lead to multiple variations of the same link. For example:
- Pagination: https://example.com/forum?page=2
- Sorting options: https://example.com/reviews?sort=latest
4. Poor URL Structure and Design
Inconsistent or poorly planned URL structures can lead to the proliferation of query parameters. This often happens when:
- Developers use default settings or auto-generated web addresses from CMS.
- URL parameters are used to control navigation instead of more SEO-friendly, clean hyperlinks.
5. Inconsistent Internal Linking
Inconsistent internal linking practices can create multiple versions of the same URL with different parameters. For example, linking to:
- https://example.com/page?id=123
- https://example.com/page?id=123&ref=home
6. Duplicate Content Handling
Improper handling of duplicate content can lead to multiple URLs with different query parameters pointing to the same content. For instance, a product might be accessible via:
- https://example.com/product?id=123
- https://example.com/product?id=123&category=shoes
7. Third-Party Services
Integration with third-party services that add query parameters to URLs, such as social sharing buttons or embedded widgets, can also create variations.
8. Technical SEO Issues
- Lack of Canonical Tags: Not specifying canonical URLs can lead to search engines treating each URL variation as separate content.
- Improper Redirects: Poorly configured redirects can preserve query parameters unnecessarily.
How To Check the Issue
One of the ways to check whether a URL has question mark issues is to test some filters available on your website category pages. This is to assess whether the content changes after the category has been filtered.
Another way to check this is with tools like Sitechecker. Just launch an audit, so crawler will find all affected URLs, and you will get a comprehensive list of issued elements.
Is a '?' affecting your URL clarity?
Ensure a clean and professional site link. Check for question marks in your URL with Sitechecker audit.
How to Fix the Issue
Fixing the “question mark in URL” issue involves several steps to ensure that links are clean, canonicalized, and do not lead to duplicate content or wasted crawl budget. Here are some comprehensive strategies to address this issue:
1. Implement Canonical Tags
Use canonical tags to indicate the preferred version of a URL to search engines. This helps prevent duplicate content issues.
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/page">
2. Configure URL Parameters in Google Search Console
Google Search Console allows you to specify how URL parameters should be treated. This helps search engines understand which parameters are important and which can be ignored.
- Go to Google Search Console.
- Navigate to the “URL Parameters” tool.
- Specify the behavior of each parameter (e.g., whether it changes page content).
3. Use URL Rewriting
Rewrite URLs to remove unnecessary query parameters. This can often be done through server configuration files (like .htaccess for Apache servers) or within the CMS.
Example for Apache (.htaccess):
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^id=([0-9]+)$
RewriteRule ^page$ /page/%1? [R=301,L]
4. Consistent Internal Linking
Ensure that all internal links point to the canonical version of a URL. Avoid linking to URLs with unnecessary parameters.
5. Avoid Unnecessary URL Parameters
Modify your site’s functionality to avoid generating unnecessary hyperlink parameters. For example, use session cookies instead of session IDs in URLs, and use form submissions that do not append parameters to the URL when not needed.
6. Proper Use of Analytics Tracking
Use tools like Google Tag Manager to manage tracking codes without appending query parameters to URLs. Alternatively, configure your analytics tools to ignore specific query parameters.
7. Robots.txt and Noindex Tags
Use robots.txt to disallow crawling of URLs with certain parameters, and use noindex meta tags to prevent indexing of unnecessary URL variations.
Example of robots.txt:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /*?ref=
Disallow: /*?utm_source=
Example of noindex tag:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
8. Content Management System (CMS) Configuration
Ensure your CMS is configured to generate clean URLs. Most modern CMSs have settings or plugins/extensions to help manage hyperlink parameters.
9. Use Rel=Prev/Next for Pagination
Use rel=”prev” and rel=”next” link attributes for paginated content to indicate the relationship between pages.
<link rel="prev" href="https://example.com/page?page=1">
<link rel="next" href="https://example.com/page?page=3">
10. Monitor and Audit Regularly
Regularly monitor your site’s URLs using tools like Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, or other SEO auditing tools to identify and fix issues with URL parameters.
