: Where does the URL parameter "?chocaid=397" come from? In Google Webmaster Tools, I noticed that my front page was indexed two times: example.com/ example.com/?chocaid=397 I know that I could
In Google Webmaster Tools, I noticed that my front page was indexed two times:
example.com/
example.com/?chocaid=397
I know that I could fix this with the use of link type canonical, but I wonder: Where does this parameter come from?
There are various sites that have pages indexed with this very parameter/value: duckduckgo.com/?q=chocaid%3D397.
I looked for similarities between these sites. but couldn't find a conclusive one: It's often the front page, but not in every case. Some are NSFW, but not all. When one domains' URL has this parameter, often other subdomains of the same domain have it, too.
Examples
Wikipedia entry
Microsoft Codeplex
More posts by @Ann8826881
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Whilst I've no definite answer, there are a few things I've found whilst looking into this which may help narrow it down:
The links also appear in Bing and Yahoo, so it has nothing to do with Google.
They appear on wikis, Tumblr blogs, Wordpress blogs and other sites, and so they aren't going to be added via an exploit in any particular software.
They appear on some very low-quality Tumblr sites, and so it is unlikely that these would have had any advertising going to them. Likewise, wikipedia articles are unlikely to be promoted via adverts.
My best guess would be that there is/was some scraper site which adds this URL to all the links it finds. Certainly, external links seem the most likely explanation for where they come from, and directories are unlikely due to the fact it is being added to quite random pages.
This might be from an ad provider that you may have, I have the same issue and the only possible place where it comes from is from an adprovider injecting some malware through the javascript codes.
It may be Googlebot trying to access jQuery/Javascript and crawl everything it can. There was a recent post on here of someone asking for help because Googlebot was crawling invalid URL's on their site. John M replied about how Googlebot may be looking for more URL's to crawl from scripts on their site. He works for Google Webmaster Tools. You pretty much answered your own question by setting the canonical tag.
How new is your domain? It may very well be this was a popular query on the old domain and thus you are still getting "visitors". Does this map to a valid page or a 404? If you are getting a lot of hits there and it's a 404, then I would remap it (use a .htaccess) to your homepage or something.
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