Query Strings Remover: WordPress Plugin

September 5, 2014

Query Strings Remover is a WordPress Plugin (made by atulhost) that removes query strings from the website’s static resources like CSS and JavaScript files. Query strings are useful, but only when you want your site to be dynamic.

WordPress is a dynamic content management system, but many of use it as a static website as well. So if you’re doing the same then make your WordPress site completely static for visitors, removing query strings can be beneficial. It can improve your cache performance (as website’s contents are not going to change regularly).

Query Strings Remover

Just download from below link and upload to your WordPress site using Upload Plugin option.

Download: Query Strings Remover.

After installing “Query Strings Remover”, activate it. Do empty website’s cached resources in order to see the magic of this plugin. Just install and forget everything, as no configuration needed.

This plugin only removes the query strings from local resources, which are hosted on your server. It can not remove any 3rd party scripts, as it is not possible to control other content. Query Strings Remover does not use even 0.1% of server’s resources, so you do not have to worry about adding this plugin to your blog or website.

How to Install Query Strings Remover from FTP?

Extract the zip file locally. You’ll get a query-strings-remover folder.
Upload that “query-strings-remover” folder to the “/wp-content/plugins/” directory.
Go to the WordPress dashboard.
Activate the plugin through the “Plugins” menu in WordPress.
You are done, enjoy.

If you face any kind of issue with this plugin, please raise your comments below in the comment section. Your comments and feedback are highly appreciated.

Topic Tags: Web Dev, Website Performance.

Post Author

Atul Kumar Pandey

Atul Kumar Pandey, the creator of the AtulHost website, is a business management graduate with a strong talent for business writing. He is also deeply passionate about technology, regularly exploring the latest trends and innovations. As an avid reader and techies, he enjoys trying out new ideas and staying ahead of the curve.

Responses to “Query Strings Remover: WordPress Plugin”

Anchit Shethia

Sep 5, 2014 9:15 PM

Let me check the magic on my blog :) Thank you.

Reply
1. Atul Kumar Pandey
  
  Sep 6, 2014 10:04 AM
  
  I highly suggest mate use this because it is very simple to use. I made it very easy that you have to just install and activate the plugin; after that no configurations needed.
  
  Reply
Rakesh Kumar

Sep 5, 2014 9:43 PM

A must have plugin for all those who does not know how to program but want to improve their performance.

Reply
1. Atul Kumar Pandey
  
  Sep 6, 2014 10:02 AM
  
  Thanks Rakesh for your feedback. I hope you like my plugin and suggest to your friends too who are using self-hosted WordPress platform for blogging.
  
  Reply
Jack Fitterer

Sep 25, 2014 10:34 PM

Hello Atul,
I’ve activated the plug in, emptied the caches and retested the speed, but I am still only receiving a grade of 35 on “Remove query strings from static resources” and the overall grade only increased one point. Any suggestions?
Thanks.

Reply
1. Atul Kumar Pandey
  
  Sep 26, 2014 7:18 AM
  
  Hi Jack,
  
  I can see that you are using JetPack plugin which creates so many links from external domains like i0.wp.com/image.jpg and this plugin only help you to remove query strings from the links hosted by you only. The best thing you can try is to disable most of the external links which are not required. As per my knowledge you have enabled JetPack Photon module which is generating more query strings.
  
  Reply
Jessica Lacy

Aug 10, 2015 12:34 PM

@AtulHost

This is a great addition to this fantastic “WordPress”! I live in a predominately video city and this will be very beneficial for my clients to use. Great update!

Regards
Jessica

Reply
1. Atul Kumar Pandey
  
  Aug 10, 2015 3:27 PM
  
  Welcome Jessica Lacy, I am glad to see that my plugin Query Strings Remover is useful to you and your client. Keep visiting us for more updates.
  
  Reply
Craig

Sep 5, 2015 8:21 PM

I use your plugin with positive results. Thanks. My question: should I be concerned that you have not updated the plugin for WP4.2 or WP4.3?

Reply
1. Atul Kumar Pandey
  
  Sep 5, 2015 8:35 PM
  
  Welcome Craig, I found there is no need for capability since WordPress still supports it without any issue. And the new update will soon come. Thanks for using it.
  
  Reply
David

Sep 17, 2015 7:53 AM

Hi,

I installed and cleared my cache (using W3 Total Cache), but I am not seeing any affect. I looked at the source and still see the query strings. Any ideas? The site is http://www.justplayinghouse.com

Thanks for any insight.

Reply
1. Atul Kumar Pandey
  
  Sep 17, 2015 8:02 AM
  
  Hi, David as I see you are using W3 Total Cache that has build-in query strings removal mechanism so I don’t think using this plugin is needed. Just enable this setting in W3 Total Cache.
  
  Reply
2. David
  
  Sep 17, 2015 8:19 AM
  
  Nevermind. I found a setting inside inside W3 Total Cache that removed it.
  
  Reply
Harsha Jayamanne

Oct 29, 2015 12:27 AM

Hi my site is
http://www.lankanewspost.com
I had your plugin installed. But it has stopped my child theme working properly. If I deactivate the plugin the child theme accept new css changes but breaks the site by removing old css.I dont mind the plugin as long as the child css is in play. Please advise

Reply
1. AtulHost
  
  Oct 29, 2015 12:48 AM
  
  Hello Harsha J. as you are using child theme please import complete functions.php too because our plugin uses the functions based on functions.php it will simply resolve your issue for sure.
  
  Reply
  1. Harsha Jayamanne
    
    Oct 29, 2015 1:28 AM
    
    I copied the functions.php file from parent to child in the c panel. But it gives a white page with a warning saying
    
    Warning: require_once(/home/——/public_html/wp-content/themes/wordx_child/theme-options.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/——/public_html/wp-content/themes/wordx_child/functions.php on line 7
    
    Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required ‘/home/——/public_html/wp-content/themes/wordx_child/theme-options.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/local/php56/pear’) in /home/——/public_html/wp-content/themes/wordx_child/functions.php on line 7
    
    What am I doing wrong?. Sorry for your trouble
    
    Reply
    1. AtulHost
      
      Oct 29, 2015 2:00 AM
      
      Just revert this step what you have did now. I checked your site using inspect element. I see no query strings which simply means plugin is working. The reason behind the theme get breaks is because of minification or above the fold optimization things break your site.
      
      One small suggestion. Never show this error line in public without removing your cPanel’s username (like abcd) which looks like /home/abcd/public_html/ because you are revealing the username in public. I have dashed the username in your comment.
      
      Reply
      1. Harsha Jayamanne
        
        Oct 29, 2015 2:58 AM
        
        Thanks Atul for correcting my silly mistakes on the post.I am happy with the site as it is with your plugin active. Only problem with that is it completely ignore the child css sheet. That is the problem. As soon as the plugin is deactivated child sheet works perfect. That is what I can’t understand
      2. AtulHost
        
        Oct 29, 2015 9:55 AM
        
        Great buddy. I will suggest to view your themes documentation if you want to add stylesheet to child theme. As far as you are happy now I hope nothing more is required.
Michael Sheridan

Jan 26, 2016 1:08 PM

Hi Atul,

My site is http://www.mavencomputers.com.au

I have installed Query Strings Remover and am also using Puzzler for css/js aggregation, and a content delivery network. This combination has my site very fast, and most query strings gone however, the aggregated style sheets still have query strings. This has the effect of making the main stylesheets load last, so I am keen to fix it. Do you have any advice?

This is my GTMetrix score 97% and 91%, so I am not complaining. :)

https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.mavencomputers.com.au/ZQbozBDO

Reply
1. AtulHost
  
  Jan 28, 2016 8:49 PM
  
  Hello Michael Sheridan,
  
  Since you have our Query Strings Remover plugin, you may see that scripts mostly css and javascripts having query strings at the end gone, but when you have scripts which are loading from other that your domain, if they are using query strings they would still present. It is not possible to modify the data which is coming from others but we can have complete control over what we have.
  
  Apart from this you can limit the numbers of HTTP Request made via combining css and javascripts; as I see you are using CloudFlare so no need for this here.
  
  Still having a good website design may have some negative scores in speed factors; because we can not break site’s functionality for few score, and thus we should focus on our side that our main files should loads fast. Use of ads, our google analytics cookie, sidebar widgets like facebook and twitter significantly kills the speed ranks. So there is hardly any need of improvements at your end.
  
  Reply
Jordan

Mar 19, 2016 4:48 AM

Hello, thanks for this plugin. I’m wondering does it encode the query string parameters into the url instead or does it just remove them?

Reply
1. AtulHost
  
  Mar 19, 2016 5:44 PM
  
  Thanks Jordan for using our Query Strings Remover plugin. It uses trim method, trims the queries from question mark to the end of strings.
  
  Reply
Jenifer @ Bharat Travel

Jul 15, 2016 1:33 PM

I had your plugin installed. But it has stopped my child theme working properly. If I deactivate the plugin the child theme accept new css changes but breaks the site by removing old css.I dont mind the plugin as long as the child css is in play. Please advise

Reply
1. AtulHost
  
  Jul 15, 2016 11:37 PM
  Hi Jenifer,
  
  I can see something is going wrong, just do this step…
  
  1. Import function.php in your child theme (if not there).
  2. Paste following code to functions.php file at the end.
```
// QUERY STRINGS REMOVER
function qsr_remove_script_version( $src ){
$parts = explode( '?ver', $src );
return $parts[0];
}
add_filter( 'script_loader_src', 'qsr_remove_script_version', 15, 1 );
add_filter( 'style_loader_src', 'qsr_remove_script_version', 15, 1 );
```
  Check for the results.
  Reply
Ameer Khatri

Sep 20, 2017 5:03 AM

Hi Atul, I just downloaded your plugin to remove query strings, but i can’t find the plugin in my WordPress dashboard. Can you please guide or is it automatic and i just need to activate?

Reply
1. AtulHost
  
  Sep 20, 2017 1:51 PM
  
  Hi, Ameer, just download it and activate from the installed plugins page. That is it. It will do magic without any settings and all. It is installed, activate and leave plugin.
  
  Reply
Ellie B

Nov 15, 2017 1:16 AM

Greetings, I installed your plugin and am hoping you could advise and guide me how to correct the continued report on pingdom that I have a ton of query strings “?” still affecting the site. Thanks Ellie.

Reply
1. AtulHost
  
  Nov 15, 2017 7:51 PM
  
  Hello Ellie. Not all query strings are bad, you only need to worry about strings from your side; by default plugin will remove strings from local resources which causes no-cache issue. Rest any external strings are not possible to remove because they are hosted by third party websites. Only possible solution is host all the content (css, js) on your server and plugin will do its magic.
  
  A side note: Query strings do not create issue unless it is set to cache. In WordPress “?” a query string defines dynamic content that is why all strings are set to no-cache in WordPress.
  
  Reply
Jason

Jan 12, 2018 4:47 AM

Hello, I was updating my website and all plugins to the latest as I haven’t done so in a while. After I was done I had a problem with my NextGEN plus plugin. I would get an error on my pages I had that plugin installed on. This was the error “Fatal error: This version of Galleria requires nextgen_pro_horizontal_filmstrip theme version 1.6 or later” I then deactivated all of my plugins except for the NextGen gallery and activated every other one, one by one checking my website as I went. This plugin ended up somehow conflicting with the NextGEN plus plugin but not the free version of NextGEN. I let them know as well that way you all know and hopefully, whoever’s plugin is causing the issue can be fixed.

Thank you!

Reply
1. AtulHost
  
  Jan 12, 2018 4:08 PM
  
  I think NextGEN Plus Plugin is already removing queries strings for, in that case, we should disable Query Strings Remover.
  
  Reply

Query Strings Remover: WordPress Plugin

Download: Query Strings Remover.

How to Install Query Strings Remover from FTP?

Related Posts

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Responses to “Query Strings Remover: WordPress Plugin”