This is regular expression. ? makes the pattern in () optional. To explain it further, if you use "?", all paths under /content are valid(including /content as well) but if you dont use "?" then "/content" is not allowed.
/content [Invalid when "?" is NOT there]
/content/a [Valid in both]
/content/a/b [Valid in both]
Regex Tester and Debugger Online - Javascript, PCRE, PHP is a good site to play around with different patterns..
Hope this helps