Thread

EE version is 2.4.0

EE is throwing an “Invalid GET Error” when a URL is passed containing ? (encoded question mark).  Could this be a bug? The problem for us is that we use Google Analytics “campaign tracking links” to track users who click on links we send in emails.

For example, we send out regular emails to our customers that contain links to articles on our website.  So, if we send out an email to our customers that has the subject line “Have you seen this?”, the Google Analytics campaign tracking link that’s automatically generated by our email provider looks something like this:

<a href="http://www.mysite.com/article?utm_medium=email&utm_content=Have%">http://www.mysite.com/article?utm_medium=email&utm_content=Have%</a> 20you% 20 seen% 20this% 3F

NOTE: I had to put a space after each “%” to get it to display on the forum

Other character encodings (like commas, quotes, and dashes) seem to be fine.  We really like to use question marks in email subject lines because they tend to get excellent open rates, which leads to increased conversions so we don’t want to have to stop using them if possible.

Thanks,
Susan

Hi Susan,

I noodled and searched and asked all around about this - The answer is - ExpressionEngine won’t jibe with the “?” on its own. It will need the help of:
1) A change in the settings on the google side

2) Some foo in .htaccess

Both of which would require some work on your part to test out.

There have been some discussions here that may shed some light for you.

Cheers,

Okay, thanks Dan.  I’ll take a look at that thread.

Hey susansan,

How are things going?

Any updates?

Thank you,

Hey Shane, I haven’t tried anything yet.  For now, I’m just not using any question marks in my email subject lines 😊  You can go ahead and close this one out.  Thanks!

Hey susansan,

Will do.

If you need anything else, please just let me know by opening a new thread.

Cheers,