Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Does a UTM tag influence the linkvalue?
-
Will Google value a link with a UTM tag the same as a clean link without a UTM tag?
I should say that a UTM tag link is not a natural link so the linkvalue is zero.
Anyone any idea how to look at this?
-
-
QuestionJonathan Poston @wjonathanposton
@methode do utms neutralize backlink value? Re: for @Moz discussion closure https://outdoorsrank.com/community/q/do
**Response: **es-a-utm-tag-influence-the-linkvalue …
Gary Illyes ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗVerified account @methode Yeah, although if they are not canonical, they'll funnel the PageRank as well as other signals to the canonical URL
-
-
This is a great thread. I have been wondering the same. We frequently see situations in which a blog links to one of our clients within a post using a custom utm URL, often citing the utm_source=affiliate even though we don't have an affiliate relationship nor have we paid for these links.
We have been requesting that the author add a rel="norewrite" attribute to the link to block the utm from affecting the link. I've been wondering if this was necessary, or if the utm link is still passing juice to our target page (especially when the source is inacuurately labeled as affiliate)
should we continue requesting the norewrite attribute?
-
Ok. Thanks for your answers. Interesting.
I love to read more theories or findings though. Please share your thoughts if you like.
-
Hi there,
If you are using the canonical tag and it is displayed properly on the UTM URLs, pointing to the canonical URL, then these links will pass value if they are followed. There are a range of reasons why someone might use UTM tags - a lot of services tag outbound links with this for tracking purposes. I would definitely try to get links nofollowed if the UTM (or another metric) clearly identifies that they are paid links and could be picked up by Google either manually or algorithmically, but the fact that the link contains the tracking code won't absolutely determine it as paid, and you can still gain authority from these links with correct canonicalisation.
Cheers,
Jane
-
I don't think you need to be overly concerned about this if you're already using rel="canonical".
We regularly receive inbound links with these parameters included in them.
The reason why this happens is that we included these parameters to track some of our email and social campaigns and sometimes people find these links and link to them. These are perfectly natural, just that the people that link to them might not know about these parameters and may think they are part of the URL and the links may not work without them.
-
Hi Yusuf,
Thanks for your reply.
We do not use the UTM tags for internal linking. However we do have external websites linking to us with UTM tagged links. These links are either paid, ppc or affiliate (=not natural). Some are dofollow and some are nofollow. I was wondering if the dofollow links with UTM tags pass linkvalue to our company website (yes we use canonical tags).No webmaster will naturally link to another website and tag the link with a UTM tag unless the link is paid..right? That said...this is also something Google knows and I would be surprised if Google passes linkjuice through these (commercial) links.
What do you think?
-
Hi Vakantiehuizen,
If you're referring to an inbound link or page being indexed containing query string parameters e.g. example.com?utm_source=x, then yes...these may cause issues with duplicate content and SEO. If you have pages with these parameters on your site then you should use the rel="canonical" tag to specify the canonical URL that you'd like Google to rank. Also, you should never include these parameters for internal links on your site.
Although I don't know what you mean when you say "UTM tag link is not a natural link". Could you explain?
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Alternate page with proper canonical tag Status: Excluded in Google webmaster tools.
In Google Webmaster Tools, I have a coverage issue. I am getting this error message: Alternate page with proper canonical tag Status: Excluded. It gives the below blog post page as an example. Any idea how to resolve? At one time, I was using handl utm grabber, but the plugin is deactivated on my website. https://www.savacations.com/turrialba-costa-ricas-garden-city/?utm_source=deleted&utm_medium=deleted&utm_term=deleted&utm_content=deleted&utm_campaign=deleted&gclid=deleted5.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alancito0 -
How to stagger <h>tags?</h>
This might seem like a silly question, but It's one that I would like to get some responses from the SEO community. Do <h>tags need to be staggered according to the numbers? For example: A few of our clients have their h1 tag listed on a mid-way header that is halfway down their page, and there are both h2's and h3's listed before the h1 in the source code. Does this matter? Let me know!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TaylorRHawkins
Thanks! </h>2 -
<loc>tag empty in sitemap, is this ok?</loc>
Hi - our website's sitemap is pretty huge, and I'm trying to generate it with the hreflang= information in it, because we have 11 different language sites all under the .com. I used the Media Flow generator for this purpose, but it returned a lot of entries with a blank tag. Our U.S. website by far has the most pages, so an example of what I'm getting is: Does this look correct???? Doesn't to me but I'm unsure.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jenny10 -
How does Google treat Header tags now? H1s, H2s and H3s. What happens if you skip the H2?
The theme I am using now means each page on my is currently set up like this: h1> keyword phrase keyword phrase The new theme I want to use is different h1> keyword phrase Will changing the theme have a negative effect on the rankings due to losing the h2 on each page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brianflannery0 -
Lowercase VS. Uppercase Canonical tags?
Hi MOZ, I was hoping that someone could help shed some light on an issue I'm having with URL structure and the canonical tag. The company I work for is a distributor of electrical products and our E-commerce site is structured so that our URL's (specifically, our product detail page URL's) include a portion (the part #) that is all uppercase (e.g: buy/OEL-Worldwide-Industries/AFW-PG-10-10). The issue is that we have just recently included a canonical tag in all of our product detail pages and the programmer that worked on this project has every canonical tag in lowercase instead of uppercase. Now, in GWT, I'm seeing over 20,000-25,000 "duplicate title tags" or "duplicate descriptions". Is this an issue? Could this issue be resolved by simply changing the canonical tag to reflect the uppercase URL's? I'm not too well versed in canonical tags and would love a little insight. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GalcoIndustrial0 -
Exact match Title and H1 tags, and over optimization
Hi Mozzers - was just wondering whether matching H1 and Title tags are still OK, or whether there's an over optimization risk if they exact match?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Why Put an H1 Tag On A Product?
Why would you put an H1 tag on a product name? I came across this in another forum and thought I'd float it here.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads0