Page Path vs Page URL in Google Tag Manager

Updated: November 28th, 2025

If you’re just starting with web tracking and have no prior technical knowledge of the web, you might be confused about which Page variables (in Google Tag Manager) to use and when. Questions like “what is the difference between Page Path and Page URL?” might be pretty common.

That’s why I’ve decided to publish a quick guide comparing Page Path vs Page URL so that you would have a better understanding of it.

If you want to learn more about Page variables and Pageview Triggers in GTM, read this guide.

Table of Contents

Here’s what you will learn in this article

• Page Path vs Page URL in GTM
• Custom Page/URL variables
• When should you use Page Path vs. Page URL?
• Final words

Page Path vs Page URL in GTM

Page Path returns way less info compared to the Page URL.

Page Path returns only what comes after the hostname (domain) but before:

• the question mark “?” (a.k.a. query parameters)
• hashmark “#” (a.k.a. URL fragment)
• colon “:” (a.k.a. port).

It just returns the subdirectory (page) you are currently in, always starting with a forward slash /. It includes everything after the hostname but stops before any query parameters (?) or fragments (#).

If you want to also use query parameters (e.g., utm_parameters) in your triggers, then the Page Path variable is the wrong choice. You should instead use the Page URL because it returns:

• protocol (e.g., https://)
• hostname (e.g., www.example.com)
• page path (e.g.,/pages/contact-us/)
• query parameters (e.g. ?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=othersite.com)

To sum up, the difference between the Page URL and Page Path is that Page URL returns almost the entire URL while Page Path returns the value after the hostname (but before the query parameter).

Here’s an image that should give you a better understanding.

If, on the other hand, you want to isolate and access only other parts of the URL (but without getting the full URL, you will have to rely on custom page variables. Continue reading, and I’ll show you how.

Custom Page/URL variables

Another great thing about GTM is its customization possibilities. If the built-in functionality is not enough for you (it probably won’t), you can do some awesome user-defined stuff.

In Google Tag Manager’s interface, go to Variables and scroll down till you see the User-defined variables section. Click new and choose the URL variable.

The URL Variable can be used to access components of the current page URL. This is a very versatile Variable type, and is especially useful for traversing query parameters and hash fragments in your URLs. Note: There are Built-In Google Tag Manager Variables for some situations (i.e., Page URL, Page Hostname, Page Path).

Let’s say the address of the web page I am currently on is https://www.example.com/welcome:8080?gclid=aabbcc123#home. Now I will describe every component type that is available in the URL variable:

• Full URL – returns the full URL without the hash fragment, e.g., https://www.example.com/welcome?gclid=aabbcc123.
• Protocol – returns the protocol of the URL, e.g., https.
• Host Name – returns the hostname of the URL without the port number, e.g., www.example.com. You can choose to strip ‘www.’ to strip the ‘www’ subdomain from the hostname. (Note: This is functionally identical to the Built-In GTM variable {{Page Hostname}}. You can use either, but enabling the built-in version is often faster.)
• Port – returns the port number used in the URL. In my example, the variable will return the 8080 value. Or 80 for HTTP / 443 for HTTPS, if the URL had no port number.
• Path – returns only the pathname in the URL (in other words, everything after the hostname, except port, fragment, and query). In my example, I would get /welcome/ value. You can also specify Default Pages to strip pages with names like ‘index.html’ or ‘index.php’ from the return string.
• Query – returns the entire query parameter string (without leading ‘?’) if you don’t specify a query key. In my case, I could specify the query key to gclid. Thus, the URL variable’s value would be aabbcc123. If you do specify a query key, but that key is absent, the variable’s value would be undefined.
• Fragment – returns the value of the URL’s fragment without the leading ‘#’. In my case, the value would be home.

You can expand the More Settings tab to find a source selector. In this selector, you can choose the Variable whose return value the URL Variable will access (for example, Click URL). But by default, the URL variable returns parts of the Page address.

When should you use Page Path vs. Page URL?

Use Page Path when:

• Creating trigger rules: Most of the time, you only care about which page loaded (e.g., /thank-you/), regardless of URL parameters. Using Page Path prevents triggers from breaking if a URL has unexpected query parameters.

Use Page URL when:

• Tracking campaign data: If you need to capture utm_source or gclid parameters in your tags.
• Debugging: When you need to see exactly which version of a link was clicked, including tracking IDs.

Page Path vs Page Url: Final words

To sum up, Page Path returns the part of the URL that comes after the hostname (domain) and before the query parameters, URL fragment, or port. An example of this could be /pages/contact-us/.

Page URL returns more information about the web page address (including the protocol, hostname, page path, port, and query parameters). An example could be https://www.example.com/pages/contact-us/?ref=internal-banner.