Modifying a query string without reloading the page

Question

I am creating a photo gallery, and would like to be able to change the query string and title when the photos are browsed.

The behavior I am looking for is often see

Answer 1

Building off of Fabio's answer, I created two functions that will probably be useful for anyone stumbling upon this question. With these two functions, you can call insertParam() with a key and value as an argument. It will either add the URL parameter or, if a query param already exists with the same key, it will change that parameter to the new value:

//function to remove query params from a URL
function removeURLParameter(url, parameter) {
    //better to use l.search if you have a location/link object
    var urlparts= url.split('?');   
    if (urlparts.length>=2) {

        var prefix= encodeURIComponent(parameter)+'=';
        var pars= urlparts[1].split(/[&;]/g);

        //reverse iteration as may be destructive
        for (var i= pars.length; i-- > 0;) {    
            //idiom for string.startsWith
            if (pars[i].lastIndexOf(prefix, 0) !== -1) {  
                pars.splice(i, 1);
            }
        }

        url= urlparts[0] + (pars.length > 0 ? '?' + pars.join('&') : "");
        return url;
    } else {
        return url;
    }
}

//function to add/update query params
function insertParam(key, value) {
    if (history.pushState) {
        // var newurl = window.location.protocol + "//" + window.location.host + search.pathname + '?myNewUrlQuery=1';
        var currentUrlWithOutHash = window.location.origin + window.location.pathname + window.location.search;
        var hash = window.location.hash
        //remove any param for the same key
        var currentUrlWithOutHash = removeURLParameter(currentUrlWithOutHash, key);

        //figure out if we need to add the param with a ? or a &
        var queryStart;
        if(currentUrlWithOutHash.indexOf('?') !== -1){
            queryStart = '&';
        } else {
            queryStart = '?';
        }

        var newurl = currentUrlWithOutHash + queryStart + key + '=' + value + hash
        window.history.pushState({path:newurl},'',newurl);
    }
}