How to exclude URL parameters in SEO Gets
URL filters in SEO Gets work with the exact text that Google Search Console and GA4 provide. They match patterns and strings, but they do not check whether a page is currently live, returns a 200 status, or follows perfect formatting. If broken links or oddly shaped URLs are still showing up after you apply a filter, it is because those URLs exist in your GSC or GA4 data and the filter is matching them as text.
How URL filters work
Page filters and content groups are text pattern matchers. They compare the characters in a stored URL to your rule using operators like these:
contains / does not contain — the URL includes (or excludes) a specific word or string
equals / does not equal — exact match
matches regex / does not match regex — pattern matching for more complex rules
matches any (batch) / does not match any (batch) — match a list of terms
Because the filter only sees the text string, it has no way to know if the URL is currently accessible or properly structured. It simply asks "does this text match your rule?"
What filters cannot do
Since filters operate on stored text rather than live web pages, they cannot:
Check HTTP status codes like 200, 404, or redirects
Tell whether a URL is currently accessible or has been removed
Validate URL formatting or reject malformed URLs automatically
Why malformed URLs still appear
Google Search Console records any URL that Googlebot encounters, including ones with encoding quirks, tracking parameters, or unusual structures. SEO Gets displays the same URLs that GSC provides, and since the filter only matches text, those entries stay visible unless you write a rule that specifically excludes them.
For example, your data might include URLs like these alongside your clean canonical versions:
/blog/post%20title — an encoded space
/product?utm_source=email — a URL with campaign parameters
/old-page/index.html — a legacy path that now redirects
SEO Gets will not remove these automatically because it does not know they differ from your preferred URLs; however, you can exclude them easily using filters.
How to exclude specific patterns
While you cannot filter by live status, you can exclude specific text patterns you recognize as malformed or unwanted. Here are a few practical examples:
Exclude encoded spaces: Set Page to does not contain and enter %
Exclude query parameters: Set Page to does not contain and enter ? or a specific parameter like utm_
Exclude a legacy folder: Set Page to does not match regex and enter /old-folder/.*
If you use content groups, the same principle applies: write a regex that captures what you want and exclude what you do not. If you need to apply broad exclusions to keep your dashboard clean when examining all content groups at once, build a custom exclusion filter and save it for recurring use.
Remember that GA4 stores URL paths without the domain or protocol. If you are filtering GA4 data, use path-only patterns like ^/blog rather than full URLs like https://yoursite.com/blog.
Checking actual page status
If you need to know whether a specific URL is indexed, crawled, or returning errors, use Index Reporting instead. Index Reporting pulls GSC URL Inspection metadata including crawl status, indexing state, and page fetch information. It shows actual page states, not text patterns.