LinkCleanhttps://www.google.com/search?q=ramen+tokyo&hl=ja
LinkClean preserves this parameter — no change.
q
Region & language (preserved) · Standard search-query convention · functional — preserved
What is q= in a URL?
What q= does
On any site that has a search box, the query you typed often ends up as ?q=<your-search-text> in the URL. The server reads it, looks up matching results, and renders the page. Strip q= and you get the search page with no results — the search box is empty.
The convention is old — it dates to early HTML forms where name="q" was the natural shorthand for the query input. It's a convention, not a standard, but it's so widespread that the major search engines all use it.
Why it's preserved
q= shapes what the user sees — strip it from a google.com/search?q=ramen URL and the user lands on a blank search page instead of seeing ramen results. The opposite of what tracking parameters do (which never affect what loads).
LinkClean's curation rule keeps generic words like q, t, s, ref, source default-off precisely because they can be functional. Host-scoped tracker rules apply only where the parameter is a known tracker on that specific site.
How LinkClean handles it
Preserved on every host. q= is in LinkClean's reference functional set alongside hl, gl, lang, t (on YouTube), v (on YouTube).
Frequently asked
Is q= always functional?
Almost always. The exception would be a site that uses q for non-query purposes — extremely rare. LinkClean defaults to preserving it.
What sites use q=?
Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Wikipedia, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Hacker News, npm, PyPI, and many more. It's a de-facto convention from the early HTML era.
Does q= leak my search history?
Only to the site you searched on — which is what searching does. Forwarding a ?q=ramen URL is sharing your search results page with someone, intentionally.
Clean tracking on iPhone, in one tap.
LinkClean strips ~80 vendor-specific tracking parameters from any link, from any app's share sheet — and preserves functional ones like hl, t (YouTube timestamp), and q (search). No account, on-device.
