What do the “/render2?id=” sessions mean?

I’ve noticed multiple 1 second sessions in Microsoft Clarity containing URLs like:

/render2?id=GTM-TJVJN6CT (my web gtm containter code)

Has anyone else encountered these types of sessions? How can we get rid of them?

Hi @Andrei_Zhao .

This issue is caused by Google’s own bots. They execute the code of your tags when you publish the container and several times daily. While Google hasn’t officially disclosed details about this behavior, it’s likely related to malware verification and other checks within the container.

This problem has been around for a while, and the exact purpose of the bots remains unclear. You can find more information here: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%2Frender2%22+gtm

The URLs associated with the bots follow these formats:

You can do the following to prevent the bots from triggering your tags.

  • Add a condition in the tag code (custom HTML or custom template) that checks if the current URL contains gtm-msr.appspot.com. If positive, abort execution. Otherwise, continue execution as intended.

Some suggest adding an exception trigger to all the tags or using a Page Hostname condition to the existing triggers, but these don’t work as the bot will still execute the tag code regardless of the trigger.

1 Like