Weird Referral URL - Is there something to worry?

[anand84]

I am really sorry, I do not know where to post this topic. I was going through my referral traffic today, when I observed that one of the destination pages was this:

http://example.com/page/?utm_source=example%20example&utm_medium=NewGen%20Broadcasting&utm_content=name%20hereutm_campaign=twitter

This is a wordpress page and my site link is only the initial http://example.com/page/, and there is this parameter passed at the end.

Is there something fishy going here?

Thanks a lot.

[edited by: engine at 5:43 pm (utc) on Aug. 25, 2009]
[edit reason] examplified [/edit]

[wilderness]

do a Webamster World search on "sql injection" or "URL hijacking".

[anand84]

Thanks for the message Wilderness..I got a bit of info, but I am not still sure if this is just a harmless ploy or if this can get Google to get angry on me..

If suppose someone is going to popularize my website link with http://example.com/page/?#*$!_terms_here, will Google penalize my site then, since it indexed a #*$! term..

[edited by: engine at 5:43 pm (utc) on Aug. 25, 2009]
[edit reason] please use example.com [/edit]

[wilderness]

will Google penalize my site

If another site is taking links away from your site and redirecting YOUR websites links to their websites?
is that a penalty?

You need to determine the server vulnerability which is allowing these links to occurr.

[anand84]

It's a wordpress blog..just checked with one of the most popular wordpress blogs, and I see the same vulnerability..

[Receptional Andy]

The parameters at the end are tracking parameters for web analytics, and are harmless.

It actually identifies a campaign used to drive traffic - in this case Twitter. I won't comment on the other parameters as they seem to contain personal information, which may be removed by a moderator, but they identify the company etc. running the campaign.

[anand84]

Thanks for the info ReceptionalAndy. I still wonder who is getting paid to drive traffic to my site via Twitter though! ;)

[Receptional Andy]

I still wonder who is getting paid to drive traffic to my site via Twitter though!

It may be that they tag all URLs for a campaign - even if it doesn't go to one of their properties. This happens a fair bit with email newsletters and suchlike.

The only possible downside for you is if these URLs get spidered and indexed, and search engines do not realise it's the same content. The ideal is to redirect URLs with tracking parameters, although this can be technically tricky depending on your site technology.

[anand84]

It's a wordpress blog. So, possibly someone has already done the coding job for me via plugin. Will probably check it out. Thanks again :)