The Basics of Google search URL Parameters Some common URL parameters include "q" for the search query, "hl" for language, "geo" for location, and "tbs" for the time-based search. Understanding and utilizing these basic URL parameters can help users customize their search experience and get more relevant results.

The question mark separates the main part of the url from the query string. In the string hl=en the hl stands for host language and en stands for English. Here is an example of one in German. https://www.instagram.com/p/BdRSEciDn4f/?hl=de.

It allows SEOs to target different countries with one website or to track multiple regional versions of one domain.

This is for a good reason. About half the people searching with Google are multilingual and often search in a language that doesn't match their settings. Instead, Google Search considers all these settings and other factors to automatically determine what languages would be most helpful to show results in.