What does "GET /?anytext" mean in logs

I am seeing this for files that do not exist

[nancyb]

the server is returning a 200. When I try to duplicate this by typing mydomain.com/?anytext into the browser address line my home page comes up. Home page, not the directory, also comes up for mydomain.com/real-directory-exists or mydomain.com/real-directory-exists/real-filename.htm.

Evidently the question mark means something, but I have been unable to find info about it searching w3c or with Google.

My web host said it was due to Webalizer and they removed the reference, but I've since deleted all Webalizer files and directories from my server and it still happens.

If too long to explain here, please suggest a place for me to go research. Thx!

[Lord Majestic]

Question mark signifies beginning of the query string -- it can be totally ignored by the script. Run a search for "query string"

[nancyb]

Thanks for the quick response Lord Majestic.

The info I found talks about scripts, dynamic pages and php but my site is plain vanilla html, no scripts, no php, no database.

I discovered this when I saw googlebot "getting" some "pages" that didn't exist. Then I discovered that G has my home page indexed and has indexed my home page several more times as a supplemental result using several different ? query strings.

Is there a way to prevent this? Or, is this something I shouldn't prevent even though G has my home page listed several times as supplemental result?

[Lord Majestic]

It does not matter if its plain text or executable -- its a URL and URLs can have Query Strings attached to them -- its totally up to the requested object to use or not to use query string.

Somebody must be linking to you with the query string -- why I don't know, but clearly it happens. If you don't need query string then you might want to have script there that will detect presense of query string, and if its present redirect to proper-non-query stringed URL.

This should help search engine wise.

[nancyb]

Thx again, LM. Yes, there are two directory type sites, honest ones, that link to me this way. I receive many referrals from them and some resultant sales so don't want to lost those.

...off to search WebmasterWorld and learn how to write a permanent redirect with a wild card for these query strings. :)