ampersands in urls (get)

In trying to get my site to validate (html 4.01 transitional), I ran
across an issue with this type of url in an href:
http://www.server.com/somePage?param1=1&param2=2 etc

Notably:
Line 49, column 115: cannot generate system identifier for general
entity "siteid"

....bfast.com/bfast/serve?bfmid=532 7311&siteid=406 67184
&bfpage=storeti le11" BORD
Now, I've never had a problem with hrefs of that sort (that is, when I
click on them, they take me to the page as expected in all browsers I've
tested with). I assume this is invalid markup since the validator
bitched about it, and I assume the correction would be to put & in
there instead, but as this code was generated by an affiliate program, I
want to be sure it won't mess anything up before I change it.
So, does changing the ampersands in a get-type url into & screw
things up for the server when it tries to parse that? It's not my server
(it's petsmart, actually), so I can't test to see.

...I ran across an issue with this type of url in an href:
http://www.server.com/somePage?param1=1&param2=2 etc ...I assume the correction would be to put & in there
Yes.
...does changing the ampersands in a get-type url into &
screw things up for the server...

kaeli wrote:

but as this code was generated by an affiliate program, I
want to be sure it won't mess anything up before I change it.
Well, if the affiliate program mandates that you put invalid syntax
into your web pages (as many of them do), you'd have every right to
complain loudly, and point them to the relevant specifications. But
if you want the money, or whatever other benefits they give, I guess
you have to follow their instructions to the letter, unfortunately.
So, does changing the ampersands in a get-type url into & screw
things up for the server

The server never gets to see it. Not with a properly-implemented
browser, anyway (the last one which I saw getting it wrong was some 5
years back). In my web page[1] I do show some examples of what can go
wrong if you _don't_ follow the spec.
The W3C validator also offers some help on this
http://validator.w3.org/docs/errors.html#bad-entity
and that clearly states that the user agent will convert the & to
the character & before passing a URL to a server so there shouldn't be
any problems with the server

The server never gets to see it. Not with a properly-implemented
browser, anyway (the last one which I saw getting it wrong was some 5
years back). In my web page[1] I do show some examples of what can go
wrong if you _don't_ follow the spec.

The W3C validator also offers some help on this
http://validator.w3.org/docs/errors.html#bad-entity

In trying to get my site to validate (html 4.01 transitional), I ran
across an issue with this type of url in an href:
http://www.server.com/somePage?param1=1&param2=2 etc

Notably:
Line 49, column 115: cannot generate system identifier for general
entity "siteid"

....bfast.com/bfast/serve?bfmid=532 7311&siteid=406 67184
&bfpage=storeti le11" BORD
Now, I've never had a problem with hrefs of that sort (that is, when I
click on them, they take me to the page as expected in all browsers I've
tested with).
That's because many browsers will make a guess, or just work
incorrectly. You won't notice many of the errors in webpages, though
that doesn't mean that everyone else will be so lucky.
I assume this is invalid markup since the validator
bitched about it, and I assume the correction would be to put & in
there instead,
Yes. That satisfies the conditions for how you write ampersands within
an HTML document, and the browser requests the right URI when you use
the reference.
but as this code was generated by an affiliate program, I
want to be sure it won't mess anything up before I change it.
So, does changing the ampersands in a get-type url into & screw
things up for the server when it tries to parse that? It's not my server
(it's petsmart, actually), so I can't test to see.