Use query strings to give users the convenience of bookmarking

You may have heard some developers say "Don't use query strings." Certainly, posting confidential data to a query string is usually a bad idea. However, when used properly, query strings are quite helpful. To see a perfect example of just how useful they are, just point your browser to a major search engine such as www.google.com. Because Google stores a user's search criteria in the query string, a user can conveniently store the search by bookmarking the page (e.g., adding to Favorites in Microsoft Internet Explorer or Bookmarks in Mozilla Firefox). When the user relaunches the page from the bookmark, she gets the latest search results based on her original search criteria.