Broken Links on Bing (Google UTMs)

[Brent]

Over the past month I've been receiving reports left and right of broken links on Bing. Turns out that the new Bing refresh has basically just scraped data straight from Google including Google-specific UTMs (for the record I did NOT sync my GBP listings with Bing).

This wouldn't really bother me, as the data now matches perfectly between platforms, but the UTM formatting is broken, causing a 404 error on a significant chunk of my businesses. This issue also seems to appear and disappear at random, affecting different locations each week.

For example, this portion of my GBP UTM should look like:
utm_source=local&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=

But on the affected Bing listings it takes that same UTM, and formats it like this:
%3Futm_source%3Dlocal%26utm_medium%3Dorganic%26utm_campaign%3D

This altered UTM causes a 404 error and is extremely frustrating, given that it is popping up at random. It's also worth noting that I have a large number of my businesses on Bing already, with the correct Bing-specific UTMs in place on the dashboard. Reminder, I do not have Bing synced up with Google, so I did not cause this problem. I know that when you first sync your listings it will port over the Google UTM. Now Bing support was absolutely useless and attributed it to old data or 3rd-party sources (like your biggest competitor, Google?).

If anyone else has seen this issue please share your experience, and especially share any resolutions you may have found. At this point I feel like the only workaround is a redirect, but that's a big task given how many affected locations there are (and could be). Thanks for any help, and keep an eye out for this issue!

 

[ElizabethRule]

Sorry I do not have a solution, but I bumped the thread

 

[fisicx]

How much traffic do you get from Bing?

 

[Brent]

My company has significant Bing traffic with hundreds of individual businesses listings.

I'm concerned that the new Bing UX is completely pointless, and they are instead just scraping business listing data directly from Google. I confirmed this over the Thanksgiving weekend, when all of my stores showed Thursdays closed (in perpetuity) on Bing. I put up Special Hours on GBP for that specific date, but Bing read that as every single Thursday should be closed. That slowly fixed itself as Bing scraped newer data after Thanksgiving weekend had passed.

 

[deemasfashion]

Over the past month I've been receiving reports left and right of broken links on Bing. Turns out that the new Bing refresh has basically just scraped data straight from Google including Google-specific UTMs (for the record I did NOT sync my GBP listings with Bing).

This wouldn't really bother me, as the data now matches perfectly between platforms, but the UTM formatting is broken, causing a 404 error on a significant chunk of my businesses. This issue also seems to appear and disappear at random, affecting different locations each week.

For example, this portion of my GBP UTM should look like:
utm_source=local&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=

But on the affected Bing listings it takes that same UTM, and formats it like this:
%3Futm_source%3Dlocal%26utm_medium%3Dorganic%26utm_campaign%3D

This altered UTM causes a 404 error and is extremely frustrating, given that it is popping up at random. It's also worth noting that I have a large number of my businesses on Bing already, with the correct Bing-specific UTMs in place on the dashboard. Reminder, I do not have Bing synced up with Google, so I did not cause this problem. I know that when you first sync your listings it will port over the Google UTM. Now Bing support was absolutely useless and attributed it to old data or 3rd-party sources (like your biggest competitor, Google?).

If anyone else has seen this issue please share your experience, and especially share any resolutions you may have found. At this point I feel like the only workaround is a redirect, but that's a big task given how many affected locations there are (and could be). Thanks for any help, and keep an eye out for this issue!

I think its URL encoding error, it is converting ? to %3F, the = to %3D, and the & to %26. When a browser sees %3F instead of a real ?, it doesn't recognize that the parameters have started; it thinks the entire string—UTMs and all—is part of the filename, which is why your server returns a 404.

Use server side solution like Regex for .htaccess or webserver config

The Logic: If URL contains %3Futm_source%3D, replace with ?utm_source=.

 

[Brent]

I think its URL encoding error, it is converting ? to %3F, the = to %3D, and the & to %26. When a browser sees %3F instead of a real ?, it doesn't recognize that the parameters have started; it thinks the entire string—UTMs and all—is part of the filename, which is why your server returns a 404.

Use server side solution like Regex for .htaccess or webserver config

The Logic: If URL contains %3Futm_source%3D, replace with ?utm_source=.

Yeah we could do work on the server side to resolve this, but it's just treating the symptoms. It would also be a significant task considering I have several hundred unique domains. I'm just confused as to why Bing is scraping entire URLs with UTMs from Google, as well as the rest of the listing data, instead of what is in the verified Bing Places account.

For the record since posting this I have claimed a number of businesses on Bing Places and the Google UTM still persists, they're not using the Bing-specific UTMs I applied from my Bing dashboard.

 

[deemasfashion]

yes you are right, for hundreds of domains ...

its seems like Bing is pulling this from your GBP, check if there is an active connection in your security settings of google accont "Third-party apps with account access" If "Bing", "MSN" or "Microsoft" is listed, Remove Access.

this may stop the "forced" sync that is overriding your manual Bing data. or remove tracking in Google for a few days like removing the UTMs from your GBP listings for 7 to 10 days might force Bing’s scraper to "clear its cache" and revert to the clean root URL. Be careful with it.

but still server side will be the easiest way