Let's say I want to share the results from my query. There seems to be a lot of meta data in the query string.
Which variables can be removed from the URL to still give a functioning Google search?
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Sign up to join this communityLet's say I want to share the results from my query. There seems to be a lot of meta data in the query string.
Which variables can be removed from the URL to still give a functioning Google search?
I tried removing all the variables except the q
string. It seems to work fine. One thing to note is that Google uses the #
symbol, instead of ?
which you normally see with query strings.
So, as an example, the URL would be: http://google.com/#q=my+query
#
and ?
will work; ?
is actually more standard and does not depend on JavaScript. Although the path will be slightly different: http://google.com/search?q=my+query
– user1686
Nov 28 '11 at 23:05
There are a bunch of other CGI parameters in the search results page URL that determine which corpus you’re seeing the results for (Images, Videos, etc.), the page of results, etc. among other things. q is the most important, but not the only one that should be included when sharing.
Some time ago, I wrote a Chrome extension to copy a shorter URL for Google search queries.
Disclaimer: I work at Google on Web Search.
For a bit more flair, try http://lmgtfy.com/. As in, http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+do+I+share+a+Google+query