My redirect is dropping the query string
A query string is the portion of a URL that appears after a question mark- for example, the ?ref=email in /events?ref=email. By default, Retour may not automatically carry query strings through to the redirect destination, which can cause issues for tracking or filtering functionality that depends on those parameters.
Why this happens
Retour is configured at the site level to either preserve or strip query strings when processing redirects. The default behaviour strips query strings to keep redirect matching clean and consistent. This means a visitor arriving at /old-page?utm_source=newsletter may be redirected to /new-page rather than /new-page?utm_source=newsletter.
How to resolve it
If preserving query strings is important for your redirects- for example, to maintain UTM tracking parameters- contact your site administrator. The query string preservation behaviour is a configuration setting that can be adjusted for the site. It is not something that can be set on individual redirects.
A note on redirect matching
When Retour tries to match an incoming URL to a redirect rule, it may also attempt a match with the query string stripped if the first attempt fails. This means a redirect set up for /old-page will usually still fire even when the visitor arrives at /old-page?some=param- but the query string will not be passed on unless preservation is enabled.
Why this happens
Retour is configured at the site level to either preserve or strip query strings when processing redirects. The default behaviour strips query strings to keep redirect matching clean and consistent. This means a visitor arriving at /old-page?utm_source=newsletter may be redirected to /new-page rather than /new-page?utm_source=newsletter.
How to resolve it
If preserving query strings is important for your redirects- for example, to maintain UTM tracking parameters- contact your site administrator. The query string preservation behaviour is a configuration setting that can be adjusted for the site. It is not something that can be set on individual redirects.
A note on redirect matching
When Retour tries to match an incoming URL to a redirect rule, it may also attempt a match with the query string stripped if the first attempt fails. This means a redirect set up for /old-page will usually still fire even when the visitor arrives at /old-page?some=param- but the query string will not be passed on unless preservation is enabled.