Does a UTM tag influence the linkvalue?

[TT_Vakantiehuizen]

Will Google value a link with a UTM tag the same as a clean link without a UTM tag?

I should say that a UTM tag link is not a natural link so the linkvalue is zero.

Anyone any idea how to look at this?

[seo2017]

• QuestionJonathan Poston‏ @wjonathanposton

  @methode do utms neutralize backlink value? Re: for @Moz discussion closure https://moz.com/community/q/do

  **Response: **es-a-utm-tag-influence-the-linkvalue …

  Gary Illyes ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ‏Verified account @methode Yeah, although if they are not canonical, they'll funnel the PageRank as well as other signals to the canonical URL

[Terakeet]

This is a great thread. I have been wondering the same. We frequently see situations in which a blog links to one of our clients within a post using a custom utm URL, often citing the utm_source=affiliate even though we don't have an affiliate relationship nor have we paid for these links.

We have been requesting that the author add a rel="norewrite" attribute to the link to block the utm from affecting the link. I've been wondering if this was necessary, or if the utm link is still passing juice to our target page (especially when the source is inacuurately labeled as affiliate)

should we continue requesting the norewrite attribute?

[TT_Vakantiehuizen]

Ok. Thanks for your answers. Interesting.

I love to read more theories or findings though. Please share your thoughts if you like.

[JaneCopland]

Hi there,

If you are using the canonical tag and it is displayed properly on the UTM URLs, pointing to the canonical URL, then these links will pass value if they are followed. There are a range of reasons why someone might use UTM tags - a lot of services tag outbound links with this for tracking purposes. I would definitely try to get links nofollowed if the UTM (or another metric) clearly identifies that they are paid links and could be picked up by Google either manually or algorithmically, but the fact that the link contains the tracking code won't absolutely determine it as paid, and you can still gain authority from these links with correct canonicalisation.

Cheers,

Jane

[TranslateMediaLtd]

I don't think you need to be overly concerned about this if you're already using rel="canonical".

We regularly receive inbound links with these parameters included in them.

The reason why this happens is that we included these parameters to track some of our email and social campaigns and sometimes people find these links and link to them. These are perfectly natural, just that the people that link to them might not know about these parameters and may think they are part of the URL and the links may not work without them.

[TT_Vakantiehuizen]

Hi Yusuf,

Thanks for your reply.
We do not use the UTM tags for internal linking. However we do have external websites linking to us with UTM tagged links. These links are either paid, ppc or affiliate (=not natural). Some are dofollow and some are nofollow. I was wondering if the dofollow links with UTM tags pass linkvalue to our company website (yes we use canonical tags).

No webmaster will naturally link to another website and tag the link with a UTM tag unless the link is paid..right? That said...this is also something Google knows and I would be surprised if Google passes linkjuice through these (commercial) links.

What do you think?

[TranslateMediaLtd]

Hi  Vakantiehuizen,

If you're referring to an inbound link or page being indexed containing query string parameters e.g. example.com?utm_source=x, then yes...these may cause issues with duplicate content and SEO. If you have pages with these parameters on your site then you should use the rel="canonical" tag to specify the canonical URL that you'd like Google to rank. Also, you should never include these parameters for internal links on your site.

Although I don't know what you mean when you say "UTM tag link is not a natural link". Could you explain?