What tracking codes in links are, and how to remove them
Copy a link from an app or an email and it often ends with something like ?utm_source=newsletter&fbclid=IwAR… or ?igsh=…. None of it is needed to open the page. It's there to tell someone where the click came from.
The common ones
- utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content
- Campaign tags. They tell the website's analytics which newsletter, ad or post sent the visitor.
- fbclid, gclid, msclkid, ttclid, twclid
- Click IDs added by Facebook, Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, TikTok and X. Each one is unique to a click.
- igsh, si
- Share codes added by Instagram, YouTube and Spotify when you tap Share. They can tie the link back to the account that shared it.
- mc_cid, mc_eid, _hsenc
- Email tracking from Mailchimp and HubSpot. They can identify the person who received the email.
Why remove them
- Privacy. Share codes and email IDs can point back to you or to the person who sent you the link.
- Clean posts. A short, readable link looks more trustworthy in a post, a bio or a message.
- Accurate analytics. Resharing someone else's campaign link credits your visitors to their newsletter or ad.
Keep the parts a link needs to work, like a video ID (?v= on YouTube) or a search term. And keep your own UTM tags on links you post for a campaign you're measuring.
Short links
Links like bit.ly, t.co or lnkd.in hide where they go. Following a short link to its real address before you share it shows you what you're sharing and removes one more redirect for your audience.
Link previews
When you paste a link into a post or a chat, the platform reads the page's title, description and preview image from tags in the page (the og: tags). Platforms save that preview for days or weeks, so a changed image may not show up right away. Facebook's Sharing Debugger and LinkedIn's Post Inspector can ask them to read the page again.
Do it in one step
URL removes tracking codes, follows short links to the real page and shows how the preview will look on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, iMessage and Slack. Text cleans tracking codes out of every link in a block of text.