When you want to make a post referencing an external link – for example, the address of a review on Amazon that you’ve copied from your browser’s menu bar – a little editing will make for a cleaner-looking post. For example:

– the URL as copied from the browser when you’re on the Amazon review page looks something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Anywhere-But-Saudi-Arabia-Experiences/product-reviews/0956708137/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

– in this case, only the first half is needed to access the correct page:
http://www.amazon.com/Anywhere-But-Saudi-Arabia-Experiences/product-reviews/0956708137/

— that’s quite a difference!

With any URL of a length similar to this Amazon example, one can expect to be able to parse it into two parts. The first part is the ‘permanent address’ (PermaLink) – the simplest address that goes directly to the desired page, like the example above. What follows in the longer version is a string of parameters that pass information back to (in this case) the Amazon server which applied to your particular viewing of the page but are not in any way need in order for the URL to work correctly on any browser.

It only takes a moment to more carefully scan the address field of your browser and only select the PermaLink before pressing your ‘Copy to Clipboard’ combination of keys. Test what you’ve copied by pasting it into the empty address field of a new browser window. If you arrive at the same, or in some cases, similar enough, page you can proceed to paste it at the appropriate point when composing your Facebook or WordPress post.