{"id":31878,"date":"2026-04-12T09:14:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T13:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=31878"},"modified":"2026-04-12T09:14:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T13:14:18","slug":"dirty-links-vs-clean-links","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/dirty-links-vs-clean-links\/","title":{"rendered":"Dirty Links vs. Clean Links"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dirty Links vs. Clean Links<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nah! Not that kind of dirty! In the world of the internet, sometimes less is a whole lot more. We’re going to show you how to clean links before you send them, so that from now on, you only send clean links.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you\u2019re sharing an interesting story or a helpful tip with a friend, you probably just copy the address from your browser and paste it into an email. But have you ever noticed that some links look like a short sentence, while others look like an entire paragraph of gibberish, numbers, and percentage signs?<\/span><\/p>\n

The difference between a Clean Link and a Dirty Link<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

What is a “Dirty Link”?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

A dirty link is a URL that has been “salted” with tracking data. Companies use this to follow you around. They want to know your subscriber ID, which email campaign you clicked on, and what “medium” you used to get there. It\u2019s all about marketing and analytics.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take a look at this monstrosity:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/losangeles\/news\/woodland-hills-girl-scout-creates-a-game-for-seniors-to-teach-about-trending-scams\/?ck_subscriber_id=2538406088&utm_source=convertkit&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=It%E2%80%99s%20splashdown%20day<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Everything after that \/? is just “noise.” It\u2019s all that personal tracking data that makes the link look suspicious, cluttered, and\u2014frankly\u2014unprofessional.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Power of the “Clean Link”<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

A clean link is the “just the facts, ma’am” version. It\u2019s the direct path to the content without all the garbage. It\u2019s shorter, it\u2019s easier to read, and it doesn’t set off “scam” alarm bells in your friends’ heads.<\/span><\/p>\n

The same page as the link above can be reached with this:<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/losangeles\/news\/woodland-hills-girl-scout-creates-a-game-for-seniors-to-teach-about-trending-scams\/<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

How to Clean Links<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a simple trick that will make you look like a pro. Before you hit “send” on that email:<\/span><\/p>\n

Look for the Question Mark!<\/span><\/p>\n

Most tracking data starts with a ? or a \/?. (Or sometimes a \/ref=).<\/span><\/p>\n

Highlight the Junk<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Select everything from the question mark to the very end of the link and hit Delete!<\/span><\/p>\n

By removing all of that personal\/subscription tracking data, you’re making your links cleaner, your emails a lot more friendly, and the links you send more likely to be clicked.<\/span><\/p>\n

Think about it? Which link are you more likely to click? The dirty link or the clean link?<\/span><\/p>\n

But wait, there’s more!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

If you want to do this automatically, Firefox has a built-in “Clean Link” feature. For Edge and Chrome (and other Chromium-based browsers like Brave), you can install a browser extension to do the work for you. Here are a couple.<\/span><\/p>\n

Copy Clean Link<\/span><\/a>: This is the most direct equivalent. It adds a “Copy Clean Link” option to your right-click menu.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
ClearURLS<\/a><\/span>: A very popular privacy-focused extension that automatically strips tracking elements from URLs as you browse or when you copy them.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dirty Links vs. Clean Links Nah! Not that kind of dirty! In the world of the internet, sometimes less is a whole lot more. We’re going to show you how to clean links before you send them, so that from now on, you only send clean links. When you\u2019re sharing an interesting story or a helpful tip with\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1462,1461,1683,1678],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31879,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31878\/revisions\/31879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}