Devoid of Anything Useful

This is a problem I had yet to address, but I've been driven up the wall after so long.

Please remove useless query strings from URLs you share.

A very good example is this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWKfYa3oBSU&feature=player_embedded

Its only purpose was to tell Youtube that you reached the page from an embed player, and not others potentially following your link.

If you still do not know what I am talking about, here are a few more examples.

- http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/09/04/229204/-Code-Breaking-Quantum-Algorithm-On-a-Silicon-Chip?from=rss

- http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/09/steel_velcro.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egUDYu_qmL0&feature=related

They serve no purpose for others, increase their length, decrease their readability, add another entry to URL-shortening and Online bookmarking services, and screw up what the website put them there in the first place for.

Of course, please use your own brain and test those query strings to see if they are useless. If they are required to show the particular page you are linking (eg. ?page=2 ) then obviously leave them there.

Another thing is that occasionally, there are also cases when a page can be linked by ID alone. Examples include:

- http://gizmodo.com/5353104/steel-velcro-made-by-germans-supports-35-tons-heat-at-up-to-800-degrees-celcius

- http://lifehacker.com/5352974/this-weeks-most-popular-posts

They can be removed very safely, and the only reason you would ever want to leave them there is to let people know where it leads to. Which is quite pointless since they are usually truncated anyway.

So, make the tubes a better place to be in.

EDIT: Apparently, someone else had written a similar post before me.
http://engtech.wordpress.com/2007/02/28/how-to-save-urls/
Go read that too.