[http] Go doing a GET request and building the Querystring

Using NewRequest just to create an URL is an overkill. Use the net/url package:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "net/url"
)

func main() {
    base, err := url.Parse("http://www.example.com")
    if err != nil {
        return
    }

    // Path params
    base.Path += "this will get automatically encoded"

    // Query params
    params := url.Values{}
    params.Add("q", "this will get encoded as well")
    base.RawQuery = params.Encode() 

    fmt.Printf("Encoded URL is %q\n", base.String())
}

Playground: https://play.golang.org/p/YCTvdluws-r