URL Tracking
Originally Posted 07/04/25
What are we talking about?
You know when sometimes you're shopping online for something, and you find something and you want to send it to someone? So you copy and paste the link, except it looks like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Echo-Spot-2024-release-Smart-alarm-clock-with-vibrant-sound-Alexa-Glacier-White/dp/B0BFCBKXWL?crid=39BUUBDI3TA5I&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IcpEDZfJq2cpeoTe5L9Xk7t6wNi9i8mCxTYxHL99OoYkv9EUFPqMBLjDTEs176eJ8SqBYbB3Dc19ajBf8eyyIIx4U7YhimicG8DkzxaBwQBgZvKzg3kQOzveKIp0cZvqWIVZKOxZ1vu65RW5W8yvhCei8lAVNBYP1fRiJlUJoJgj9XFd9h33STxGSv4ZQdVpyEEJO_1PalvL617bz7_ElsHv1wKIHfsQ3eh9VWupMhW83e47-IffK8urXkXoA6PTdsUtpmSkNgUah3STzDqnm5aWW3R55_2XD4nzw3FKW54.ng2jtuP0KAeTQtX5rzQiVsoQjmTqvPGL9gdklHywlA8&dib_tag=se&keywords=alarm%2Bclock&qid=1751659942&sprefix=alarm%2Bclock%2Caps%2C109&sr=8-11&th=1
Or maybe you're browsing social media, see an article you want to share, but the link looks something like this:
https://www.jalopnik.com/1902012/1000-per-month-car-loan-norms/?utm_source=BS-BP-Jalopnik&utm_medium=Social-Distribution&utm_campaign=dlvrit-feed
And, if you're anything like me, have thought "huh, that link looks kind of ugly with all the random number and letters" or "why is this link so long?". Well, I'm here to tell you about why they look like that.
It's tracking information
Everything after and including the ? in each link, is just tracking information. So, with both links, you could eliminate the highlighted parts:
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Echo-Spot-2024-release-Smart-alarm-clock-with-vibrant-sound-Alexa-Glacier-White/dp/B0BFCBKXWL?crid=39BUUBDI3TA5I&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IcpEDZfJq2cpeoTe5L9Xk7t6wNi9i8mCxTYxHL99OoYkv9EUFPqMBLjDTEs176eJ8SqBYbB3Dc19ajBf8eyyIIx4U7YhimicG8DkzxaBwQBgZvKzg3kQOzveKIp0cZvqWIVZKOxZ1vu65RW5W8yvhCei8lAVNBYP1fRiJlUJoJgj9XFd9h33STxGSv4ZQdVpyEEJO_1PalvL617bz7_ElsHv1wKIHfsQ3eh9VWupMhW83e47-IffK8urXkXoA6PTdsUtpmSkNgUah3STzDqnm5aWW3R55_2XD4nzw3FKW54.ng2jtuP0KAeTQtX5rzQiVsoQjmTqvPGL9gdklHywlA8&dib_tag=se&keywords=alarm%2Bclock&qid=1751659942&sprefix=alarm%2Bclock%2Caps%2C109&sr=8-11&th=1
https://www.jalopnik.com/1902012/1000-per-month-car-loan-norms/?utm_source=BS-BP-Jalopnik&utm_medium=Social-Distribution&utm_campaign=dlvrit-feed
And the links would still work:
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Echo-Spot-2024-release-Smart-alarm-clock-with-vibrant-sound-Alexa-Glacier-White/dp/B0BFCBKXWL
https://www.jalopnik.com/1902012/1000-per-month-car-loan-norms/
What sort of tracking information?
I want to preface this section with saying that this is my understanding on what's happening, and I may be wrong.
In the first Amazon link, my understanding is most of what it's looking at is how you got to the item. What sort of things did you search for or click on before getting to the particular item.
In the second link from Jalopnik, it's looking to see where I clicked on the link from. So, in that section, you can see it says "utm_source=BS", and I had gotten that article from Bluesky. The folks who own jalopnik would then be able to see in their data that they've had x amount of people click on their articles on Bluesky, or Facebook, or Instagram, or wherever which would help them determine where it may be best to share their work or try to promote their work.
A side note, my understanding is this is also how affiliate links work for products. For example, I went to a recent Linus Tech Tips video, went into the description, and saw this link to one of the products they mentioned in their video:
https://us.mammotion.com/collections/robot-lawn-mower?utm_source=KOL&utm_medium=linus-tech-Tips.
You can see in the link there it shows "utm_medium=linus-tech-tips". So, when that company is checking on its web traffic, it can tell how many people went to their site from Linus Tech Tips videos, and that data can help them decide if their sponsorship was worth it, or not.
Why should I care?
Personally, I want to give companies as little information as I can about myself. I also think the link looks better without a bunch of random numbers and letters after it. So, if I'm sharing a link, I often strip off the tracking info because... it's not important? Now, I will double check the links before I send them, because there's been a handful of times I go to share a link without any of the info after the ? and the link just doesn't work. But most of the time it's fine.
The other thing is, by knowing this, say you really wanted to support Linus Tech Tips, and knew they used affiliate links. Whenever you shared the link for whatever company, you could purposefully choose to use the Linus Tech Tips one, rather than just the direct link to the company, as that would boost how many people it looks like came from the Linus Tech Tips video.
Wrap up
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions or if I got anything wrong!