Thread

We have set up landing pages for Google Adword campaigns, like this:
http://www.autosafe.org/index.php/adwords/clutch-replacement

But for some reason Google is adding a query string to the links from it’s Ads. Like this:
http://www.autosafe.org/index.php/adwords/clutch-replacement/?gclid=CJH_pbyLpaMCFeT92AodHG8uvQ

As you can see, that page doesn’t load anymore, and defaults to the site homepage content.

How can we work around this?

IC360,

1. Which version and build are you on?
2. Have you tried disabling Strict URLs?

Strict URLs are already switched Off.
I’m on version 2.0.2 Public Beta

Is it an option to upgrade to 2.1? Just so we’re all on the same page in terms of code.

Yup sure thing.
Have just upgraded to v 2.1.
Still having the same problem.
It’s a weird one… any ideas?

IC360,

There’s a pretty detailed thread tackling this which might help.

One of the first tests it mentions is to try setting your 404 page to None and see if that changes anything.

Yes I did see this post… but I’m slightly confused.
If we use the htaccess file to change the URL of the page that is displayed, wont this prevent Google from using the gclid reference for its intended tracking?

There are Adwords linked to these landing pages, with specific tracking requirements, so we don’t want to lose this tracking data.

If we use the htaccess file to change the URL of the page that is displayed, wont this prevent Google from using the gclid reference for its intended tracking?

You’d have to give this a try. If I remember correctly EE doesn’t allow question marks in the URL.

Unfortunately I don’t really know enough about htaccess files to work out how to do it.
The other post, focuses on how to sort this out for the homepage.
My pages are further down into the site than that.

This URL:
http://www.autosafe.org/index.php/adwords/clutch-replacement/?gclid=CJH_pbyLpaMCFeT92AodHG8uvQ

Should look like this:
http://www.autosafe.org/index.php/adwords/clutch-replacement/

Anyone able to help me get the htaccess file to deal with this?

Thanks a lot.

Unfortunately server side rewrites are somewhat outside the scope of regular Tech Support. Let me move this to the CodeShare Corner for your for some additional community support.

This problem has resurfaced and I’m really hoping someone can help me get the htaccess file fixed so the page still loads correctly if the Adwords query string is added.

This is what the page should look like:
http://www.myfavouritegarage.com/index.php/adwords/clutch-replacement

This is what’s called from Google Adwords:
http://www.myfavouritegarage.com/index.php/adwords/clutch-replacement/?gclid=COyV1byPpaMCFYiX2Aod5TIG5w
As you can see it defaults to the site homepage.

‘adwords’ is a template.
‘clutch-replacement’ is an entry ‘title_url’ (of which there are many others).

Is this possible to get sorted my modifying the htaccess file?

Hi, has anyone found a fix for this? Other than creating a htaccess rewrite? I’m using a Windows server so using one of those is not so straight forward.

Thanks

Andrew

I never found a solution.
Have given up, unless anyone else can come up with a genius idea (or EllisLabs can fix it).

Shame, but thanks for letting me know.

Adding this to my .htaccess file fixed this issue for me. Your mileage may vary.

# Catch incoming Google campagins
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(gclid=*)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]