LinkCleanhttps://example.com/sale?gclid=Cj0KCQjwxOnFBhCFARIsABf-9QyMaQwerty
After LinkCleanhttps://example.com/sale
gclid
Ad-click identifiers · Google Ads
What gclid actually is
gclid stands for Google Click Identifier. When you click a Google Ads link — on Search, Shopping, YouTube, or the Display Network — Google appends ?gclid=<opaque token> to the destination URL. The token encodes the ad-account, the campaign, the ad-group, the ad itself, and the click event.
On the destination, Google Ads' conversion tag (or Google Analytics' linker, or the Ads landing-page experience script) reads gclid and uses it to credit the click to that ad. It's the bridge between “ad served” and “customer arrived” in Google's bookkeeping.
Newer variants: gbraid and wbraid
Apple's App Tracking Transparency and Safari's restrictions on third-party cookies broke parts of Google Ads' classic gclid model. Google introduced gbraid (for iOS app-install attribution) and wbraid (for web on iOS) as more privacy-conscious replacements that work without a cross-site cookie.
All three are in LinkClean's default catalog. Stripping them keeps marketing analytics out of the URL on share — and out of someone else's browser when they open the link.
What it leaks when you share the link
Forwarding a link with gclid attached carries the click-credit token into another person's session. If they land on a page running Google Ads conversion tracking, that tracking fires using *your* gclid — quietly inflating someone else's bookkeeping and tying their pageview to your ad-click context.
It's not personally identifying on its own, but the privacy-safe default is to share a link, not metadata about how you found it.
How LinkClean removes it
gclid, gbraid, and wbraid all ship in LinkClean's default ads catalog and are stripped on every host. Same pipeline as fbclid, msclkid, ttclid, yclid — vendor-specific tokens that have no legitimate non-tracking use.
Frequently asked
Will removing gclid break the page?
No. The page loads identically. gclid is only read by Google's conversion tracking scripts on the destination; the page server doesn't use it for anything.
Does this affect prices I see?
Not in any common case. gclid drives advertiser-side reporting (who paid for the click, which campaign worked) — it isn't a coupon code or a session ID for the merchant.
Is gclid the same as fbclid?
Same kind of thing, different platform. fbclid is Meta's click ID; gclid is Google Ads'. msclkid is Microsoft's, ttclid is TikTok's, yclid is Yandex's. LinkClean strips all of them by default.
Why also strip gbraid and wbraid?
They're the iOS-era replacements Google rolled out after ATT and Safari ITP closed the loopholes the classic gclid model relied on. Same job, same default-on treatment in LinkClean.
Clean it on iPhone, in one tap.
LinkClean strips this parameter — and 80+ others — from any link, from any app's share sheet. No account, on-device.
