Follows a tracked link through its redirects from our server and shows, hop by hop, whether each UTM parameter was kept, changed or lost before the visitor lands. For marketers whose campaign traffic shows up as direct.
How to use it
Paste the full link you put in the email, the ad or the post, with its UTM parameters. You can leave out https://.
- Paste the tracked link and press Run check.
- Read the chain from top to bottom: each address shows the UTM parameters it still carries.
- Find the first step marked "Lost at this step" or "Changed at this step".
- Fix that redirect, or link to the final address, then run the check again.
How Reavlo tests this
This tool runs on our server, because a browser cannot read the redirects of another site. Nothing about the request is stored or logged: not the link, not the parameters.
Following. Each address is requested on its own and the redirect it answers with (301, 302, 303, 307 or 308) is read from its Location header, so every hop is shown. Up to 3 redirects are followed, with a size and time limit. Addresses that point to private or internal networks are refused before any connection is made, at every hop. Permanent (301, 308) and temporary (302, 303, 307) redirects are labelled.
Parameters. The utm_ parameters of each address are compared with the previous one. A parameter missing from the final address is reported as lost; a parameter whose value differs, including its capitalisation, is reported as changed. Names are compared in lower case.
Verdicts. Survival is judged only when the chain ends: a loop, a chain that is still redirecting after 3 hops, or an error at the end is reported as that problem instead.
Limits. The tool follows redirects that the server announces with a status and a Location header. It does not run JavaScript and does not follow a <meta http-equiv="refresh"> tag or a redirect written in a script, which are read as a final page; a link that redirects that way can lose its parameters without this tool seeing it. It also checks the link as a plain visitor: a redirect that depends on cookies, the country or the device can behave differently for your audience. Parameters in the fragment (after #) never reach a server and are not read.
Questions
Is the link I paste stored?
No. The link goes to our server only to follow the redirects, and neither it nor the answers are stored or written to a log. Analytics records only that the tool ran, never the link.
Why do my UTM parameters disappear after a redirect?
A redirect only keeps the query string if the rule that sends the visitor on is written to forward it. Many shorteners, site migrations and www or https rules send the visitor to a fixed address and leave the parameters behind.
What happens in analytics when the parameters are lost?
Analytics reads the campaign from the address the visitor lands on. Without the parameters the visit is counted as direct or by its referrer, not as your campaign.
Does a 301 or a 302 matter for UTM parameters?
Both can keep or drop the parameters; what decides it is the address in the Location header. The difference is that browsers and search engines remember a permanent redirect longer.
Why does the tool say it cannot follow my redirect?
It follows redirects sent as an HTTP status, up to 3. A redirect done with a meta refresh tag or JavaScript is invisible to it and is read as the final page.