utm_term

Paid-search attribution explained

utm_term is the fourth of Google's five UTM campaign tags. It's almost exclusively used on paid-search ads — the value is the keyword the searcher typed that matched the ad's targeting. utm_term=privacy+ios+app says the click came from someone searching that exact phrase.

On organic clicks (a click from an unpaid Google search result), utm_term is virtually never present — Google has stripped the referring keyword from organic referrer data since 2011. The tag is therefore a strong signal that the click was paid.

When keyword data is more revealing than utm_source

Forwarding a link with utm_term still attached tells anyone downstream which keyword the advertiser was bidding on. That can be revealing — the keyword is often a competitor's name, a specific product configuration the publisher is targeting, or an internal A/B-test cohort label.

Like the rest of the UTM family it's not personally identifying — it identifies the *campaign*, not the visitor. But it does telegraph the advertiser's paid-search playbook to whoever receives the forwarded URL.

How LinkClean removes it

utm_term ships default-on with the entire utm_* family. Stripped on every host — there's no legitimate non-Google-Analytics use of this name on the web.