What are UTM parameters?

A UTM parameter is a small piece of text added to the end of a URL to tell a website where a visitor came from. UTM stands for "Urchin Tracking Module" — named after Urchin, the analytics company Google bought in 2005 that became Google Analytics. The name stuck, even though almost no one remembers where it came from.

They always live after the ? in a link, and they look like this:

https://example.com/sale?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring

The five UTM tags

There are five standard ones. You'll usually see the first three:

• utm_source — where the traffic came from, e.g. newsletter, facebook, google.
• utm_medium — the type of channel, e.g. email, social, cpc (paid click).
• utm_campaign — the specific campaign name, e.g. spring_sale.
• utm_term — the paid keyword that was targeted.
• utm_content — which specific link or button was clicked.

Who adds them, and why

Marketers add them. When a company sends a newsletter or runs an ad, they tag the links so their analytics can report exactly which campaign brought in visitors and sales. It's genuinely useful — for them. The tags do nothing for you as the person receiving the link.

Why you might want to strip them

Three reasons. They make links ugly and long, which looks untrustworthy when you paste one into a message. They leak the trail — re-share a tagged link and you pass that campaign data on to whoever clicks. And if you run your own analytics, someone else's UTM tags can pollute your numbers, making your traffic look like it came from their campaign.

Do UTM tags break anything if removed?

No. UTM parameters are purely for tracking — the page loads exactly the same with or without them. They're safe to remove every time. The only things you should keep are parameters that actually change what the page shows, like a search term (q) or a product ID.

That's the whole job of URL Valet — it removes the UTM tags (and other trackers) while carefully keeping the parts that make the link work.