Trying to understand what this means

[bigcliff]

Hi all, first post so be gentle with me.

 

I'm trying to understand what the tracking in the following URL portion means.

 

The URL is from position 27 on page 2 on a search on Amazon.

 

/ref=sr_1_27?ie=UTF8&qid=1386759643&sr=8-27&keywords=

 

I think the 1386759643 is a timestamp

I think the 2 x sr= mean search result =

The 27 obviously means position 27 in the search results but what does the 1 in ref=sr_1_27 & the 8 in sr=8-27 mean and why are there 2 different =sr's?

 

Thanks in advance

Edited December 11, 2013 by bigcliff

[trq]

Why does it matter?

[Ch0cu3r]

 

what does the 1 in ref=sr_1_27 & the 8 in sr=8-27

I can only assume its for their pagination maybe? 

 

 

and why are there 2 different =sr's?

There is not two sr's. One is a query string variable (sr=8-27) the other is part of a file request (/ref=sr_1_27).

 

How amazon processes the request we wont know.

[grissom]

It breaks down like this :

 

ref = sr_1_27

ie = UTF8

qid = 1386759643

sr=8-27

keywords = [there aren't any]

 

UTF8 refers to the character coding (ie a bit like the "alphabet") used to encode the text. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8

qid may refer to some "id" number

sr = 8-27 may be short for "show search results 8 to 27" - but that's just my wild*ss guess

 

As Ch0cu3r says, how Amazon process this info is their programmers knowledge to know, and ours to guess. This page will tell you a bit more about query strings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_string hope any of this helps