Get query string values in JavaScript

You don't need jQuery for that purpose. You can use just some pure JavaScript: 

function getParameterByName(name, url) {
    if (!url) {
      url = window.location.href;
    }
    name = name.replace(/[\[\]]/g, "\\$&");
    var regex = new RegExp("[?&]" + name + "(=([^&#]*)|&|#|$)"),
        results = regex.exec(url);
    if (!results) return null;
    if (!results[2]) return '';
    return decodeURIComponent(results[2].replace(/\+/g, " "));
}

Usage:

// query string: ?foo=lorem&bar=&baz
var foo = getParameterByName('foo'); // "lorem"
var bar = getParameterByName('bar'); // "" (present with empty value)
var baz = getParameterByName('baz'); // "" (present with no value) 

var baz = getParameterByName('viral'); // "" (present with no value)

var qux = getParameterByName('qux'); // null (absent)