Why is Google adding a /?gclid= to the URL of my website?

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Why is Google adding a /?gclid= to the URL of my website?

/?gclid= string added to website link from adwords

Jack777

12:20 am on Dec 20, 2009 (gmt 0)

This has completely thrown me for a loop. I just launched an ecommerce site that uses php/database to dynamically populate products. I just started advertising on Google through AdWords and saw one of my ads. I clicked on it, and instead of directing me to the homepage of the site, it added a "/?gclid=" and then a long string of letters and numbers. This causes the webpage displayed to be a simple "Record not found!" error instead of the actual homepage. Any ideas on how this "/?gclid=" string is being added to the ad url for my site? I thought maybe it was my Google Analytics code so I stripped that out, but have the same problem. Thanks for any ideas you can offer.

ppcbuyers

12:39 am on Dec 20, 2009 (gmt 0)

Google adds this tag to your destination URLs in order to track and report your AdWords keywords and costs within Analytics.

Per Google:

When Analytics is activated within AdWords, "Destination URL auto-tagging" is turned on automatically. This feature allows Analytics to track information about clicks on your AdWords ads by tagging your AdWords keyword destination URLs with a "gclid=" parameter. This parameter is displayed in your landing page URL. For example,
http://www.example.com/?gclid=12345abcd

A small number of websites do not allow URL parameters and serve an error 404 page. If your site does not allow parameters, you can prevent this error from occurring you can either turn "Auto-tagging" off in your account (see steps below) or ask your webmaster to allow URL parameters. Also, if you prefer not to have the "gclid=" parameter appear in your URLs, you can turn auto-tagging off.

TURN AUTO-TAGGING OFF
1. Sign in to your AdWords account
2. Navigate to My Account--> Account Preferences
3. On the Account Preferences page find the Tracking section Click "Edit"
4. Turn Destination URL auto-tagging off by unchecking the checkbox
5. Save changes to finish

Search "gclid" in AdWords help and you'll find more info

Jack777

1:17 am on Dec 20, 2009 (gmt 0)

Thanks very much. I turned the feature off and it solved the problem. Now I just need to figure out how to have my next programmer/designer "allow parameters" so I can turn it back on and get the data without it showing an error. I had someone else build the site for me. I do know a little bit about design and tweaking pages/code. Is it an easy fix to allow parameters?