I don’t know if this is anything related to Stape or not, but in two websites GA is appending _ga, _gl, and _up parameters to a URL when I click on a link on the website.
This appears if I reject cookies, and then click the link.
I read a few articles and this is supposed to be something related to cross-domain tracking, but this is turned off. Chat GPT suggested a bunch of reasons to why this appears, one of them is also improper consent signals, but I’m not sure if that’s the case.
I don’t have anything configured in GTM containers that would add these parameters. I also tested the same container and added my the container to my testing ecommerce store, and this didn’t happen.
So, either this got something to do with GA4 (although we’ve been comparing settings, and couldn’t find anything different, or some plugins on the website. Maybe some conflict with Stape’s or other plugins?
Or maybe something else. Has anyone experienced this? The client is affraid this impacts SEO performance.
I tried changing Google tag configuration and removed the send_to_url parameter so that it sends events directly to GA4. But the GTM snippet was still implemented as first-party, through Stape WP plugin, using custom domain and custom loader.
This configuration also creates those url parameters.
When I changed the method of implementing GTM snippet from Stape GTM plugin to clasic GTM snippet implementation without using custom domain and custom loader, the url parameters didn’t occur.
I tried to manually insert the modified GTM snippet generated through stape power-ups, and avoid using Stape GTM plugin, to see if there’s any plugin conflict, but the issue stays the same.
I also tried to use the standart GTM snippet, but only changing the url to a custom domain and the gtm.js to a custom loader. This then worked, and no parameters were appended. It seems that the snippet generated by Stape is causing this, but only on some websites.
I have no idea why this happens on one website and not the other. I have Stape GTM WP plugin on the other as well, and it doesn’t do this.
So, to summarize:
the url parameters aren’t appended on client’s website when using the normal GTM snippet without custom domain and custom loader
the url parameters aren’t appended on my testing ecommerce where I’m using Stape GTM plugin for WP, and also using custom loader and custom domain. I’m using the same GTM container for debugging process.
the url parameters aren’t appended when I’m using the normal GTM snippet, but just changing the url to a custom domain and gtm.js to a custom loader.
in any other case where I’m using a snippet generated from stape on client’s website (either via Stape plugin or manually), this parameters are appended. I also tried changing GA4 property, but without any luck.
This is a cross-domain tracking feature for GA4/Google ADS or passthrough option on your CMP. You may have this enabled in several places:
Conversion linker tag on web or server container. Linking options between domains or url’s.
GA4 data stream settings → domain list configuration
Consent banner. If you use any tag in GTM there is usually an option called ‘URL passthrough’. If embedded in code - you need to check with your CMP provider how to disable passthrought if you have it active.
I know these parameters are a cross-domain feature, but we don’t have this set up anywhere. That’s why it was a weird behavior. If the settings were the issue then the issue would persist even when we changed the GTM snippet so that it’s not the Stape generated one, but a normal one with a custom domain and custom loader. But that solved the problem for these two websites.
Anyway, I now switched to Stape CDN, and this seems to have solved the problem even with Stape’s generated snippet.