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Strip anchors

Function: Strip anchors​

This action helps you clean up web addresses (URLs) by removing the "anchor" part. An anchor is the section of a URL that starts with a hash symbol (#) and is often used to link to a specific part of a webpage, like a heading. For example, in https://www.example.com/page#section2, #section2 is the anchor.

By stripping anchors, you get a cleaner, base URL, which can be useful for tracking, sharing, or processing URLs without specific internal page references.

Input​

  • Url: The complete web address from which you want to remove the anchor.
    • Type: URL
    • Required: Yes
  • Result Variable Name: The name of the variable where the cleaned URL (without the anchor) will be stored.
    • Type: VARIABLE
    • Default Value: RESULT

Output​

The action will store the processed URL (without the anchor) into the variable you specified in "Result Variable Name".

Execution Flow​

Real-Life Examples​

Here are some practical ways you can use the "Strip anchors" action:

Example 1: Cleaning a URL for analytics​

Imagine you're collecting URLs from user activity and want to analyze traffic to specific pages, regardless of which section of the page users visited.

  • Inputs:
    • Url: https://www.yourwebsite.com/products/item123#reviews
    • Result Variable Name: CleanedProductURL
  • Result: The variable CleanedProductURL will contain https://www.yourwebsite.com/products/item123.

Example 2: Preparing a URL for external sharing​

You want to share a link to a document, but you don't want the recipient to jump to a specific section; you want them to see the beginning of the document.

  • Inputs:
    • Url: https://docs.company.com/guide/setup#installation-steps
    • Result Variable Name: (Left blank, so it defaults to RESULT)
  • Result: The variable RESULT will contain https://docs.company.com/guide/setup.

Example 3: Processing a URL that might or might not have an anchor​

You have a list of URLs, some with anchors and some without, and you need a consistent base URL for all of them.

  • Inputs:
    • Url: https://blog.example.com/latest-news (no anchor)
    • Result Variable Name: BaseLink
  • Result: The variable BaseLink will contain https://blog.example.com/latest-news (the URL remains unchanged as there was no anchor to strip).