Quote Originally Posted by yellow1912 View Post
Hi Chris,

If the link is, like you said, generated by Google, then there is no way we can change the way it works. And also, if it is created by Google, there is no reason why it wouldnt understand the link generated by itself.

Interesting. Perhaps you can pm me the keywork I need to search so that the ads will show up, and then I can investigate the problem? (I promise I wont click on that ads )
Hi Yellow,

Again, my thanks for all your help and patience with this... My apologies as I'm not to 'savvy' with exactly how Google or your SEO code work in detail.

As you mention, the gclid attibute is generated by Google (Adwords) and gets appended to the link to our website/product page.

Normally this attribute takes the form of:

http://www.site.com/catalog/product....hofrandomchars

In the footer of our site is the Google analytics code which monitors the traffic to our site. This code (I imagine embedded in the ga.js Javascript) reads the URL and finds the gclid attribute. If can then report back to Google that someone came to our site by clicking on a specific Adwords ad.

However, if an SEO mod is changing the attribute in the URL to:
http://www.site.com/catalog/product....hofrandomchars

... would the ga.js code have trouble reading the gclid variable?

This is where my understanding of your mod weakens... when the original link is passed to our site, does the SEO mod change the URL immediately, or would the GA code see the original URL (and any passed variables) without modification?

I guess you are correct when you say that if the link is created by Google, it should be able to understand it. Except that the link is being modified from it's original format to the new 'SEO friendly' format. Maybe Google can't understand it anymore?

Interesting link with some info is here.

In any case, here's a few keywords for you to try... I'll give you the ones which tend to appear most often in the USA:

1. microbead
2. bugle beads
3. seed beads
4. Craft Organizer

Thanks for your help and I hope you're doing ok there in Houston. (I heard that it may be 4 weeks for some people to get power back?!)

Best regards,
Chris