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Thanks for introducing new parameters, Google!

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SEO
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Intro

Google has once again unleashed chaos in the SEO and your reporting landscape with the introduction of new URL parameters: gQT and gPromoCode. These new additions, seemingly tied to Google Shopping campaigns, are wreaking havoc on SEO strategies, reporting accuracy, and data management. Again a frustrating move and clearly shows that Google simply don't care or is not aware of the implications of attaching unknown parameters to billions or campaign urls.

Whats going on with gQT and gPromoCode?

One of the most frustrating aspects of this rollout is the lack of documentation. As of now, there’s little to no information available about what these parameters actually do or how they affect performance. Are they used to track shopping-related behavior? Are they unique identifiers for promotions? No one knows for sure. Even our SEA colleagues where surprised and didn't noticed it.

This lack of transparency leaves webmasters and marketers guessing. Without clear guidelines or documentation from Google, managing the implications of these parameters becomes a guessing game. And in the world of SEO, guesswork is the last thing you need.

For us we noticed it while analyzing the increase of parameterized URLs. It clearly started with the 2nd of december

Increased parameterised traffic

What you can do?

To clean your data you can use the "is_merchant_listings" field in the BigQuery export of GSC, because this is the source of the traffic and all parameterized URLs are marked as "true". So go clean your data :D

Impact on SEO

The introduction of new parameters creates several problems for SEO practitioners:

  • Duplicate Content Issues: These parameters, when added to URLs, can create multiple versions of the same page. For instance:

example.com/product-page

example.com/product-page?gQT=1

example.com/product-page?gPromoCode=456

Search engines like Google may index these as separate pages, leading to duplicate content issues. Without proper canonicalization, this could dilute your page’s authority and harm rankings. So make sure you handle indexation properly.

  • Index Bloat: If Google starts indexing URLs with these parameters, your site’s index could become bloated with unnecessary and redundant pages. This makes it harder for search engines to crawl your site efficiently and can negatively affect overall site performance.

  • Reporting: Your reporting can be messed up a little bit, because it seems like you have a lot of unwanted URLs creating traffic or you need to strip the parameters to have a proper overview on URL level performance.

Why does it matter:

Google’s introduction of gQT and gPromoCode parameters highlights a recurring problem: the company’s tendency to make big changes without adequately informing or preparing its users. For businesses and agencies that rely heavily on accurate data and optimized URLs, the lack of transparency and documentation is a significant setback.

Here’s the bigger issue: by appending cryptic undocumented parameters to URLs, Google’s Shopping campaigns are contradicting their own best practices.