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I pasted a URL with ?utm_source and #reviews. Why does that part not appear in the preview's link line?

Because the preview shows the link as a path: the host, then the path segments separated by ›, leaving out everything after ? and after #. When it does, it warns you that the URL has parameters or a #fragment that are not shown in the path. More importantly, tracking tags belong on links you share, not on the page address you want search engines to index, so preview with the clean URL.

Published · 3 min read

What happened to the URL

In the Search snippet preview we entered the title Oud Oil, the description Shop oud and this URL:

https://example.com/oud?utm_source=x#r

The link line in the preview became:

example.com › oud

And a message appeared: The URL has parameters after ? or a #fragment. They are not shown in the preview path. The tool did not remove or change anything in your URL; it simply did not draw that part in the path line. Enter the clean https://example.com/oud and the same path appears with no message at all.

Why the tool shows it this way

Many search results display the link as a short path rather than the full text, and the preview follows that general style without imitating any particular engine. Whether an engine would show the parameters or not, they are not what you want a searcher to see under your title.

So where do tracking tags go?

  • On links you publish outside your site: ads, WhatsApp messages, your bio, your newsletter. There they tell you where a visit came from.
  • Not on internal links between your own pages, and not on the URL you treat as the page's official address.
  • If a tagged URL really does show up in search results, it is usually because a tagged copy spread around. A well-known way to point engines to the original is the tag that declares a page's canonical URL, which you set in your page or platform, not in this tool.

To build the campaign links themselves, keeping other parameters and the #fragment intact, use the UTM campaign link builder. Here, use the URL you want to appear in results.

And the part after #?

The part after #, such as #reviews, points to a spot inside the page, like the reviews section, and is never sent to the server at all. The page is the same without it, so there is no reason for it to appear in the path line. If you want a searcher to reach a particular section, that happens on the page, not in the search result.

  1. If you copied the page URL from an ad or a message, delete everything after ? and after # before pasting.
  2. Paste the clean URL into the preview and check the warning has gone.
  3. Look at the path line: does it describe the page in words that make sense?

Common questions

Does the tool open my URL to read the parameters?

No. It only reads the text of the URL you typed; it does not visit the page or contact any search engine.

Do the parameters appear in the generated tags?

No. The tags are the title and description only; the URL is not part of them.