What you are probably seeing
When you click a link, your browser URL briefly changes to a tracking domain before landing on the final page. This visible jump confirms the tool is using a server-side redirect to tag the click.
Your analytics show high traffic from the tracking domain rather than the final destination. This indicates the tool is intercepting the request and rewriting the source before sending it to the actual site.
Why it happens
Legacy tracking systems use redirects because it is the simplest way to capture the user’s initial session and attach a unique identifier without requiring complex browser-level injection. The redirect acts as a checkpoint where the tool can log the click and modify the URL with parameters.
Modern attribution tools often hide this step using client-side JavaScript that passes data through cookies or custom events before the page load completes. If the URL does not change, the tool is likely using a different mechanism that does not rely on a server-side redirect hop.
What changed recently
Step by step
1. Open the network tab in your browser developer tools and click one of your tracked links to observe the request sequence.
2. Check if the first request goes to a tracking domain that immediately issues a 301 or 302 status code pointing to the final URL.
3. Verify if the final URL contains appended query parameters that did not exist in the original link state.
4. Test your links in incognito mode to ensure the redirect behavior is consistent and not cached by a previous session.
5. Review the server logs for your tracking domain to confirm if they are logging the incoming user agent before forwarding the request.
Ways to go further
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