Is this a Google query string?

?gclid=... seen appended on URI requests

[RedTCat]

OK, possibly not exactly the right place for this post, but its the nearest Google related forum I could find!

On one of my ecommerce sites I've recently seen requests for URI like: www.example.com/?gclid=CKDw2dXP1IkCFRh3YAod4wHi2A

My site does not use any scripting to query this type of URI, so they are clearly "bogus" requests. Unfortunatly the referrers are either not shown or from dynamically created pages that no longer seem (if they ever did have) a link to the site.

Is this a Google type URI for one of their Adsense, Adwords, etc... schemes that has somehow been appended to my URI? ... or what ...?

I'm concerned that I might be accused trying to "steal" revenue from the site the query string identifies, or subject to some other type of financial malpractise!

[mcavic]

[adwords.google.com...]

[RedTCat]

Thanks mcavic.

According to: [adwords.google.com ]

The parameter used in auto-tagging is called "gclid" and will show up in your landing page URL when a user arrives at your site from your ad. For example, if your site is www.mysite.com, when a user clicks on your ad it will appear in the address bar as:
www.mysite.com/?gclid=123xyz

So how or why is someone apparently putting their Adwords code on links to my URL!?

[davelms]

It's also used on links from Google News. Which is where/how I found it appended to my URLs.