Do Google One Box Results Get Special Tracking Parameters With Integrations

Have you ever noticed that some Google one boxes, like the Twitter carousel, in Google Search, have special tracking parameters added to the URLs when you click on them. Carolyn Lyden asked John Mueller of Google why is this the case.

She shared this screenshot showing the parameters added to the end of the URL, they are UTM parameters. She said “I noticed when clicking on tweets from the Twitter carousel in Google serps that there are Twitter UTMs like this. How is this pulled? From what Twitter offers Google for scraping?”

John didn’t have a solid answer but he did say “it could be something unique to the one-boxes since it’s a bit of a unique integration there.” Meaning, maybe Twitter asked Google to add those parameters so Twitter can track them better on their end? Twitter and Google had a contractual agreement years and years ago, which did not last too long, maybe those parameters were requested back then? I don’t know.

Here are those tweets:

I’m not sure what you’re looking at there, but it could be something unique to the one-boxes since it’s a bit of a unique integration there.

— 🖖 johnmu (personal), logically 🖖 (@JohnMu) September 7, 2022

Maybe they’re not called that anymore? I mean those special sections with other content that you get for some kinds of results, like when you look up sports scores or the weather.

— 🖖 johnmu (personal), logically 🖖 (@JohnMu) September 7, 2022

Advertisement

Forum discussion at Twitter.