remarkbox/docs/thread-uri.md

Thread URI: How Comments Are Tied to Page URLs

How It Works

Remarkbox threads are keyed by the page URL (called the thread_uri). When you embed Remarkbox on a page, the embed script automatically reads window.location.href from the parent page and uses it as the thread identifier. All comments posted on that page are stored under that URL.

This means:

• Each unique URL gets its own comment thread.
• If the same embed snippet appears on two different URLs, each page has its own independent thread.
• If you move the embed snippet to a different page (different URL), the new page will show an empty thread because the URL changed.

"My Comments Disappeared After Moving the Embed"

This is the most common cause of "missing" comments. Your comments are not deleted -- they are still stored under the original page URL. You can confirm this by checking the Remarkbox dashboard, where all threads are listed regardless of which page currently has the embed.

When you move the embed snippet from https://example.com/old-page to https://example.com/new-page, Remarkbox sees new-page as a brand new thread with no comments.

How to Preserve Comments When Moving an Embed

Use the thread_uri parameter in your embed snippet to manually set the thread identifier. This overrides the automatic URL detection.

Standard Embed (automatic URL detection)

<div id="remarkbox-div">
  <noscript disabled>
    <i>JavaScript is required to load the comments.</i>
  </noscript>
</div>
<script src="https://my.remarkbox.com/static/js/iframe-resizer/iframeResizer.min.js"></script>
<script>
  var defined_thread_uri = window.location.href;
  // ...
</script>

Pinned Embed (manual thread_uri)

To keep the same comment thread even after moving the embed, set defined_thread_uri to the original page URL:

<script>
  // Pin this embed to the original page URL so comments follow the embed
  var defined_thread_uri = "https://example.com/old-page";
  // ...
</script>

With this change, no matter where you place the embed snippet, it will always load and display the comments from https://example.com/old-page.

When to Use Manual thread_uri

• Moving content between URLs: Pin thread_uri to the original URL.
• Staging/production parity: Use the production URL as thread_uri so comments don't split between environments.
• URL canonicalization: If your site is accessible at both www. and non-www. URLs, set a canonical thread_uri to avoid duplicate threads.
• Single-page applications (SPAs): If your SPA changes the URL hash or query string without a full page load, pin thread_uri to the canonical path to avoid fragmenting comments.

Related: Namespace Settings

The Ignore Query String setting in namespace settings can also help. When enabled, Remarkbox strips query parameters from the URL before matching threads. This prevents URLs like ?utm_source=twitter from creating separate threads.

Summary

Scenario	What Happens	Fix
Move embed to new URL	New empty thread appears	Set thread_uri to original URL
Same page, URL query changes	May create new thread	Enable "Ignore Query String" in namespace settings
Same page, URL fragment changes	Fragment is stripped automatically	No action needed
Different environments (staging/prod)	Separate threads per environment	Set thread_uri to canonical production URL