URL Cleaner: Remove Tracking Parameters from Links
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This URL cleaner strips tracking parameters such as utm_source, fbclid, gclid and msclkid from links, one URL or a whole list at a time. It suits marketers, SEOs and anyone who wants to share a short, tidy link without the ad tracking attached. Paste your links, keep any parameters you need, and copy clean URLs in seconds.
Everything runs in your browser and updates as you type. The stats bar shows how many URLs changed and flags any line that is not a valid URL, so you can spot typos before sharing.
What a URL Cleaner Removes
A URL’s query string is everything after the ?. It holds key-value pairs separated by &. Some of those pairs change what the page shows. Others only tell an analytics or ad platform where the click came from.
Tracking vs functional parameters
Functional parameters affect the content: ?id=482 loads a product, ?page=2 loads the next page of results, ?q=shoes runs a search. Remove them and the link breaks or shows something different. Tracking parameters do not change the page at all. They exist so tools like Google Analytics, Meta or Microsoft Ads can attribute the visit. A URL cleaner should drop the second group and leave the first alone. That is why the tool has an “Always keep these params” field: type id, page or any other key your site needs and it will never be removed, even when you choose to strip all query parameters.
Common tracking keys
With the default setting, the tool removes all utm_* tags (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content and similar), Google’s gclid, gbraid, wbraid and dclid, Meta’s fbclid, Microsoft’s msclkid, and Mailchimp’s mc_cid and mc_eid. It also catches _ga and _gl linker values, Instagram’s igshid, TikTok’s ttclid, X’s twclid, LinkedIn’s li_fat_id, Yandex’s yclid, HubSpot’s _hsenc and _hsmi, Marketo’s mkt_tok and a few others such as si and spm.
How to Clean a URL
The tool processes every line separately, so you can clean one link or a few hundred.
Step 1: Paste one or many links
Paste links into the box, one per line. A URL without https:// is still accepted and the scheme is added for you. Blank lines are kept blank, so the output lines up with your input, which helps when you clean a column copied from a spreadsheet.
Step 2: Choose parameters to strip
Leave “UTM & ad click IDs” checked for normal cleaning. Tick “All query parameters” to remove the whole query string. Optional extras remove the #fragment, the www. prefix and the trailing slash. “Lowercase host” is on by default because domain names are not case sensitive. Add any parameter you must keep in the keep list.
Step 3: Review the cleaned link
Check the stats: “URLs cleaned” counts lines that changed and “Invalid” counts lines that could not be read as URLs. Invalid lines are passed through untouched. Open one or two cleaned links in a new tab to confirm they still load the right page.
Step 4: Copy or export
Click Copy to grab the whole list or Download to save it as a text file. Paste the clean links into your message, document, spreadsheet or redirect map. If you need to remove repeated links afterwards, run the list through the Duplicate Line Remover.
Privacy Benefits of Clean Links
Tracking values look like random strings, but they carry information about you and the person who shared the link.
What tracking IDs reveal
A click ID such as fbclid or gclid is generated for a specific click on a specific ad or post. When someone opens a link carrying it, the destination site and its ad partners can tie that visit back to the original campaign, and sometimes to the account that clicked. UTM tags are less personal but still reveal which newsletter, campaign or influencer the link came from. Share IDs added by apps can show that a link came from your account. None of this is needed for the page to work.
Sharing links in chats and email
When you forward a link in WhatsApp, Slack, email or a forum, the tracking tail goes with it. Everyone who clicks may then be counted as traffic from your original source, which muddies the sender’s analytics and can expose where you found it. Long links also look spammy, wrap badly in emails and get cut off in some chat apps. A quick clean before sharing gives a shorter link that people are more likely to trust and click.
URL Parameters and SEO
Parameters matter for search engines too, mainly because they create many URLs for one page.
Duplicate URLs and canonical tags
To a crawler, /shoes/, /shoes/?utm_source=x and /shoes/?fbclid=123 are three separate URLs with the same content. Google usually groups them and picks one, but you help it by adding a rel="canonical" tag pointing to the clean version. Use clean URLs in internal links, XML sitemaps and redirects so you never point search engines at tracked versions. When you create campaign links, build them with the UTM Builder and use them only in external campaigns, never in your own navigation.
Parameter handling in Search Console
Google retired the URL Parameters tool in Search Console in 2022, saying its crawler had become good at working out which parameters matter. Today, your controls are canonical tags, consistent internal linking, robots.txt rules for crawl-heavy parameter patterns, and clean sitemaps. Search Console’s Page indexing report can show you parameter URLs flagged as duplicates.
Unwrapping Redirect and Shortened Links
Some links are hidden inside other links. This tool cleans the query string of the URL you paste, so unwrap these first.
Google and Facebook redirect wrappers
Links copied from search results, Facebook or some email clients can look like google.com/url?q=https://example.com/... or l.facebook.com/l.php?u=.... The real address sits inside the q or u parameter, URL encoded. Copy that value, decode it (replace %3A with : and %2F with /, or open it and copy the final address from the browser bar), then paste the result here to strip its tracking.
Short link expansion
Short links from bit.ly and similar services hide the destination entirely, so there is nothing to clean until you expand them. Open the short link, let it redirect, and copy the final URL from the address bar. Many shorteners also offer a preview page. Then clean the full URL before sharing.
Link Cleaning Mistakes to Avoid
Cleaning is safe for tracking keys, but a few habits can cause problems.
Removing required IDs
“All query parameters” also removes product IDs, search terms and pagination. Add those keys to the keep list or stick with the default setting.
Stripping your own UTMs before analytics
Do not clean links in your own campaigns. Your UTM tags are how analytics credits email, social and paid traffic.
Breaking encoded characters
Avoid hand editing encoded values like %20 or %2F. The tool rebuilds each URL with a standards-based parser, which keeps encoding intact.
Share Shorter, Safer Links
Paste your links above, keep the parameters that matter, and copy clean URLs ready to share or store. When you are building links instead of cleaning them, use the UTM Builder for campaigns, the URL Slug Generator for readable paths, or the .htaccess Redirect Generator to redirect old addresses. More free tools are on FHSEO Hub.