Google Gemini drops UTM tags from cited links after three weeks

Google’s Gemini assistant stopped attaching the tracking tag utm_source=gemini to the source links cited in its answers at the end of September 2026, roughly three weeks after it began adding the tag without documentation, according to server-log data published by search consultant Natzir Turrado and reported by Search Engine Roundtable on October 30. Desktop visits from Gemini can still be identified through the referrer that browsers pass along. Visits that reach websites with no referrer, which analytics tools file as direct traffic, have lost a label that for a few weeks made some of them attributable to Gemini.

In Short

For about three weeks in September 2026, Google’s Gemini chatbot added a small label, utm_source=gemini, to the web addresses it cited, so websites could tell which visitors had come from Gemini. Around September 29 the label disappeared, and Google has not said why or whether it will return. Visits from Gemini in a desktop browser can still be traced, but…