Comments on: Destination URLs, Tracking Parameters and 301 Redirects - A Cautionary Tale

By: John

John — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:10:32 +0000

@ Mike,

Not a problem! I likely would’ve been oblivious to this type of issue if it hadn’t happened to me, too. All the more reason to share my findings and solutions.

Thanks for commenting!

By: mike

mike — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:53:07 +0000

Mate,

thanks for the great post. This has helped track down a problem we were having.
mike

By: John

John — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:02:44 +0000

@ Utah,

Glad you learned something (as I did!). Thanks for commenting.

@ Taylor,

I’ve reviewed Google’s documentation for Conversion Tracking, and don’t see *anything* that would suggest 301 redirects will interfere with PPC conversion tracking. Google (and all the PPC search engines) utilize cookies to track conversions, and since this is something placed on the user’s computer, your site’s 301 redirects should have no effect.

In terms of SEO, resolving duplicate content with 301 redirects is a must - so us PPC advertisers need to learn to work with and/or around those redirects! Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any more questions. : )

By: taylor

taylor — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:20:48 +0000

Hi John,

This is great information. I’ve researched in the past on this topic to little avail. In any case, do you know if using 301 redirects will also interfere with Adwords Conversion Tracking, or are we dealing only with Analytics here?

Some of our ads include http://www. in the destination URL, some don’t. For SEO purposes, we’re talking about using a 301 redirect to make non-www. URLs always resolve to the http://www. version. As head of PPC, I want to make sure we don’t screw up our conversion tracking, etc.

Any info you could provide would be awesome. Thanks so much!

By: Utah SEO Pro

Utah SEO Pro — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:07:07 +0000

Thanks for sharing John. I definitely learned something new with this. I love unique posts!

By: » Should You Use 301 Redirects? Pay Per Click Journal - Pay Per Click Advertising Blog

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:46:43 +0000

[...] over at PPC Hero reports an experience he had with 301 redirects. This is a lesson worth telling and retelling simply because the Google AdWords Help Center tells [...]

By: John

John — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:03:29 +0000

@ Merry,

In my situation, it happened to Google, Yahoo and MSN adCenter. I would suggest that you try testing your landing pages first ( http://www.example.com/landingpage?utm_source=test ) If the tracking parameter disappears when the page resolves, you’ve found your problem. But if the code remains attached to your URL, then the code should be passing to your site correctly.

I would also suggest that you double check your URL tracking parameters. Make sure that you are properly assigning source to MSN (or adCenter, whatever floats your boat) and that the medium is set to “CPC.”

Any one else have any suggestions for why this would happen to adCenter only?

By: Merry

Merry — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:21:26 +0000

The only time I’ve ever seen this happen was the first time we tried adding Google Analytics parameters to destination URLs in an Adcenter campaign. We couldn’t work out what was causing it at the time - have you heard of this happening to anyone else using Adcenter? I need to check with the client if they have any redirects but it only seems to happen coming through from Live search.

By: John

John — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:12:25 +0000

@ PPCblogger,

Thanks for the info! This furthers my point that if you even think there might be a reporting problem, TEST, TEST and TEST again.

By: PPCblogger

PPCblogger — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:59:33 +0000

That will happen with any server side redirect, not just a 301, so a 302 etc aswell. They will simly strip away your parameters and send you to the new page.

Quick client side redirects & meta refreshes can also do the same.