Plain answers about the tracking junk stuffed onto the end of the links you click, copy and share: what each parameter is, who set it, what it reveals, and whether you can delete it. Spoiler: for everything listed here, you can.
Every one of these can be removed by hand. Select everything from the ? or
& before the parameter to the next & and delete it; the
page loads the same. Rather's Link Shortener just does that for you, automatically, on every
page, in the address bar and in everything you copy.
Unique tokens ad platforms append to every ad click so the site you land on can report you back to the platform.
fbclidA unique token Facebook appends to every link you click on its platforms, so the site you land on can report your visit back to Meta and tie it to your Facebook identity.
gclidThe unique token Google Ads appends to every ad click so the advertiser's site can report your visit and purchases back to Google.
wbraidGoogle Ads attribution tokens invented for iPhone traffic after Apple's privacy rules blocked gclid, wbraid for web campaigns and gbraid for app campaigns.
msclkidMicrosoft's equivalent of gclid: a unique token added to every Bing ad click so the advertiser's site can report you back to Microsoft Advertising.
ttclidA unique token TikTok appends to ad clicks so the destination site's TikTok Pixel can report your visits and purchases back to TikTok, matched to your account.
twclidA unique token X (Twitter) appends to ad clicks so the destination site's X Pixel can report your actions back and match them to your X account.
epikPinterest's click identifier, appended to outbound clicks so the destination site's Pinterest Tag can report your actions back, matched to your Pinterest session.
li_fat_idLinkedIn's first-party ad tracking identifier, appended to ad clicks so the destination site's Insight Tag can report your actions back to LinkedIn.
sccidSnapchat's click identifier, appended to ad clicks so the destination site's Snap Pixel can report your actions back to Snap, matched to the click and your account.
rdt_cidReddit's click identifier, appended to ad clicks so the destination site's Reddit Pixel can report your actions back to Reddit for ad attribution.
ysclidYandex's click identifiers: ysclid is stamped on links opened from Yandex search results, yclid on ad clicks, both matched by Yandex Metrica on the destination site.
Labels that tell an analytics tool which campaign, email or banner brought you in.
Tokens added when someone taps a Share button, tying the link back to the person and moment that shared it.
siThe share identifier YouTube and Spotify attach when you tap Share: a token that ties every open of that link back to the specific share that created it.
igshThe token Instagram attaches when you share a post, reel or profile out of the app, tying every open of that link back to your specific share.
mibextidTokens Facebook's mobile apps attach to links you share out of them, recording the share context so opens can be traced back to it.
Tokens from email tools that can identify exactly which recipient clicked.
mc_eidMailchimp's click-tracking tags: mc_cid names the campaign, and mc_eid is your personal subscriber ID, which identifies you, specifically, as the person who clicked.
_hsencHubSpot's tracking family: _hsenc is an encrypted token identifying you as the specific email recipient, _hsmi names the email, and hsa_ tags mark ad clicks.
mkt_tokAdobe Marketo's email token: a long encoded value that identifies exactly which recipient clicked, logged against your record in the sender's marketing database.
_bhlidbeehiiv's click-tracking token, appended to every link in newsletters the platform sends, tying the click back to the specific subscriber and send.
Tokens search and shopping services attach to product and result links.
srsltidGoogle Merchant Center's auto-tagging token, added to product listings in search results so merchants can attribute your visit; infamous for leaking into ordinary organic results and sticking to every URL you copy afterwards.
jicAn undocumented Amazon Prime Video parameter that encodes the browse context you came from, the row or filter you were in when you clicked, riding along in every title link you copy.
Rather's Link Shortener strips all of these and hundreds of parameters like it, right in the address bar and in everything you copy or share. Free, open source, no account, no data collection, and the page you are on never breaks: the cleanup happens after the site has already loaded.