Work with URLs

Learn how to edit URLs in Data View in Productsup.

Introduction

Different export channels have specific requirements for URL formats. Productsup lets you optimize your URLs in Data View or Dataflow in bulk using certain rule boxes.

You can perform the following actions with URLs:

Tip

You can find the list of all available rule boxes for URL optimization in Data View if you type URL in the Add box drop-down menu.

Shorten URLs

You may need to shorten URLs to meet the length restrictions required by specific export channels.

Go to Data View from the site's main menu.
Choose the needed export channel or the intermediate stage in the drop-down menu on the left.
Select Edit in the attribute's column where you want to apply the rule box.
Select the Add Box drop-down menu.
Search for and select the Shorten Url rule box.
Select Save to apply the rule box.

Warning

Applying the Shorten Url rule box changes URLs' domains.

Get a filename from a URL

You may need to get a filename and type from a URL. For example, you can extract filename.csv from http://example.com/path/to/filename.csv.

To get the filename and type from a URL, take the following steps:

Go to Data View from the site's main menu.
Choose the needed export channel or the intermediate stage in the drop-down menu on the left.
Select Edit in the attribute's column where you want to apply the rule box.
Select the Add Box drop-down menu.
Search for and select the Get Filename from URL rule box.
Select Save to apply the rule box.

Add and change URL parameters and fragments

Add a URL fragment

A URL fragment is an internal page reference that appears at the end of a URL and begins with a hash character (#) followed by an identifier. It refers to a section within a web page.

To add a missing fragment to the end of a URL:

Go to Data View from the site's main menu.
Choose the needed export channel or the intermediate stage in the drop-down menu on the left.
Select Edit in the attribute's column where you want to apply the rule box.
Select the Add Box drop-down menu.
Search for and select the Add URL Fragment rule box.
Enter a fragment in the Fragment (without #) field.
Select Save to apply the rule box.

The result of applying the Add URL Fragment rule box:

Before	After
`http//www.yourdomain.com?utm_campaign=google_play`	`http//www.yourdomain.com?utm_campaign=google_play#test`

Add or change a URL parameter

URL parameters represent a key and a value separated by an equals sign (=) and joined to the rest of the URL by an ampersand (&). You can add or change URL parameters in bulk in Productsup. For example, if you need to deal with tracking parameters that pass information about a clicking behavior through a URL.

Productsup lets you add a static parameter to all the URLs in one column. Or you can add individual dynamic parameters to your URLs from another column in your feed.

To add URL parameters to your URLs:

Go to Data View from the site's main menu.
Choose the needed export channel or the intermediate stage in the drop-down menu on the left.
Select Edit in the attribute's column where you want to apply the rule box.
Select the Add Box drop-down menu.
Search for and select the Add / Change Link Parameter rule box.
Enter the name of your parameter in Parameter Name.
If you want to add a static parameter, enter it in Value. If you want to add a dynamic parameter, choose the column that contains your dynamic parameter in the Column drop-down menu.
Select Save to apply the rule box.

Encode and decode URLs

To meet the requirements of your export channel, you may need to percent-encode or decode your URLs.

Encode URLs

Productsup lets you encode URLs, replacing all non-alphanumeric characters except -, _, and . with a percent sign (%) followed by two hex digits and changing spaces to plus signs (+).

To percent-encode your URLs:

Go to Data View from the site's main menu.
Choose the needed export channel or the intermediate stage in the drop-down menu on the left.
Select Edit in the attribute's column where you want to apply the rule box.
Select the Add Box drop-down menu.
Search for and select the URL Encode rule box.
Select Save to apply the rule box.

The result of applying the URL Encode rule box:

Before	After
`http//www.yourdomain.com?utm_campaign=google_play`	`http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yourdomain.com%2F1.html%3Futm_campaign%3Dgoogle_play`

Encode raw URLs

Productsup lets you encode raw URLs, replacing all non-alphanumeric characters except -, _, ., and ~ with a percent sign (%) followed by two hex digits and changing spaces to %20.

To encode raw URLs:

Go to Data View from the site's main menu.
Choose the needed export channel or the intermediate stage in the drop-down menu on the left.
Select Edit in the attribute's column where you want to apply the rule box.
Select the Add Box drop-down menu.
Search for and select the Raw URL Encode rule box.
Select Save to apply the rule box.

The result of applying the Raw URL Encode rule box

Before	After
`https://www.google.com_text-new+product~2022`	`https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com_text-new%2Bproduct~2022%20`

In the Before column, there is a space at the end of the URL and so it becomes %20.

Decode URLs

URL decoding converts percent-encoded URLs into a regular URL format. To decode percent-encoded URLs:

Go to Data View from the site's main menu.
Choose the needed export channel or the intermediate stage in the drop-down menu on the left.
Select Edit in the attribute's column where you want to apply the rule box.
Select the Add Box drop-down menu.
Search for and select the URL Decode rule box.
Select Save to apply the rule box.

The result of applying the URL Decode rule box

Before	After
`http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yourdomain.com%2F1.html%3Futm_campaign%3Dgoogle_play`	`http//www.yourdomain.com?utm_campaign=google_play`

Append or prepend an encoded URL from another column

If you want to encode a URL from another column and add this encoded version to one of your attributes, use the Add Column URL-Encoded rule box.

Go to Data View from the site's main menu.
Choose the needed export channel or the intermediate stage in the drop-down menu on the left.
Select Edit in the attribute's column where you want to apply the rule box.
Select the Add Box drop-down menu.
Search for and select the Add Column URL-Encoded rule box.
In the Column drop-down list, select a column with the link you wish to encode and add to the chosen attribute.
Choose whether you wish to append or prepend the URL to this attribute in Mode.
Select Save to apply the rule box.

In this section: