Sometimes a customer tells us their site is fast in every speed test, yet Google Ads reports a “Below average” landing page experience. One cause worth ruling out is how the server handles the tracking parameters that ads add to your URLs. This article explains what happens on the server when one of those URLs arrives, how to check whether it is affecting your site, what you can change yourself, and what to send us if you would like a hand.
What the server does with a tracking parameter
A cached page is a copy of the finished HTML, stored so it can be sent without running WordPress and querying the database. The cache looks pages up by URL. When a visitor arrives at /?gad_source=2&... and the cache has not been told to ignore that parameter, it treats the URL as a page it has never seen. The request goes through to PHP and WordPress, the page is built from scratch, and the visitor waits for all of it before the first byte comes back.
Common parameters such as UTM tags are usually handled by caching tools. The ones that cause trouble are less standard: Google’s gad_source, and parameters added by click fraud tools like ClickCease, call tracking like CallRail, or a shopping feed tool. Each paid click can carry a different combination of values, so every click can miss the cache. Speed tests load the clean URL, which is why they look fine.
Checking whether it affects your site
Compare the response time of a clean URL with the same URL carrying a parameter. From a terminal:
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{time_starttransfer}\n" "https://yourdomain.com/"
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{time_starttransfer}\n" "https://yourdomain.com/?gad_source=2&test=123"The number is the time to first byte in seconds. Run each a few times, since the first request after a cache clear is always slower. If the clean URL is consistently quick and the parameter version is consistently slow, the parameter is bypassing the cache. Behind Cloudflare, the cf-cache-status response header tells the same story: HIT means Cloudflare served its cached copy, while MISS, BYPASS or DYNAMIC mean it did not.
In real-user data the pattern looks like this: normal visits to the homepage respond in around half a second, while visits carrying a new campaign’s parameter take three seconds or more. If PageSpeed Insights shows poor TTFB in its field data while the lab test looks fast, this mismatch is a strong hint.
What you can change
1. Get the list of parameters
Start with the tracking template in your Google Ads account, then check individual ads and any click fraud, call tracking or feed tools. Some of these tools add five to ten parameters each.
2. Ignore them in your caching plugin
Caching plugins can either cache each parameter variation or ignore the parameter. Choose ignore. The values are close to unique per click, so cached variations would rarely be reused, and the first visit, often the only visit from a paid click, would never be cached. With the parameter ignored, the cache serves the normal page and the parameter stays in the address bar for your tracking scripts. WP Rocket needs its add-on plugin for ignored query strings; other plugins have their own setting. Purge the cache after saving.
3. Handle Cloudflare separately
If you use Cloudflare APO or edge caching, ignoring a parameter in WordPress does not change what Cloudflare does: those requests still bypass its cache. Cloudflare’s answer is Transform Rules, which need to cover every combination of your parameters and can get complicated. If your Cloudflare is connected through a hosting integration rather than your own account, you may not be able to create Transform Rules at all. Running your own Cloudflare account gives you control over the firewall and these rules.
When to open a ticket
Open a ticket from the client area if you would like us to confirm how the server responds to your ad URLs, or if the slow responses continue after you have set up the exclusions. Include:
- A real landing page URL exactly as it arrives from an ad, with all its parameters.
- The list of parameters from your tracking template and tools.
- The caching plugin you use, and the exclusions you have already added.
- Whether the domain uses Cloudflare, and whether it is your own account or a hosting integration.
Set expectations
This removes one specific cause of slow responses for paid visitors. Google’s landing page experience rating also weighs relevance, usability and other factors, and it updates on Google’s timetable, so treat this as one fix to rule in or out rather than a guaranteed change to the rating. Recheck after every new campaign or tracking tool, because a new parameter can bring the slow responses straight back.