{"id":1731,"date":"2012-12-19T16:02:35","date_gmt":"2012-12-19T16:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/query-string\/"},"modified":"2017-05-31T18:22:21","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T18:22:21","slug":"query-string","status":"publish","type":"definition","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1228\/query-string","title":{"rendered":"Query String"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span id=\"what_does_query_string_mean\">What Does Query String Mean?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>A query string is the portion of a URL where data is passed to a web application and\/or back-end database. The reason we need query strings is that the HTTP protocol is stateless by design. For a website to be anything more than a brochure, you need to maintain state (store data). There are a number of ways to do this: On most web servers, you can use something like session state server-side. On the client, you can store via cookies. Or in the URL, you can store data via a query string.\n<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"techopedia_explains_query_string\">Techopedia Explains Query String<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>On the world wide web, all URLs can be broken down into the protocol, the location of the file (or program) and the query string. The protocol you see in a browser is almost always HTTP; the location is the typical form of the hostname and filename (for example, www.techopedia.com\/somefile.html), and the query string is whatever follows the question mark sign (&#8220;?&#8221;).\n<\/p>\n<p>For example, in the URL below, the bolded area is the query string that was generated when the term &#8220;database&#8221; was searched on the Techopedia website.\n<\/p>\n<p> \/\/www.techopedia.com\/search.aspx?<strong>q=database\u00a7ion=all<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Does Query String Mean? A query string is the portion of a URL where data is passed to a web application and\/or back-end database. The reason we need query strings is that the HTTP protocol is stateless by design. For a website to be anything more than a brochure, you need to maintain state [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"definitioncat":[273,245],"class_list":["post-1731","definition","type-definition","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","definitioncat-devops","definitioncat-internet"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.2 (Yoast SEO v24.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is a Query String? - Definition from Techopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Query String and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Query String\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Query String and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1228\/query-string\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Techopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/techopedia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-05-31T18:22:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@techopedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1228\/query-string#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1228\/query-string\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Margaret Rouse\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#\/schema\/person\/f5dd538e31ee352d105b8af36c4268a5\"},\"headline\":\"Query String\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-12-19T16:02:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-05-31T18:22:21+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1228\/query-string\"},\"wordCount\":205,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1228\/query-string#respond\"]}],\"articleSection\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1228\/query-string\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1228\/query-string\",\"name\":\"What is a Query String? 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