Argologix Click Tracker

Overview

Advertisers add the click tracker to their Google Ads campaigns as a tracking template. When someone clicks one of their ads, that person's browser requests the tracking URL; the tracker records the click for the advertiser and answers with a redirect to the ad's landing page.

It is operated by Argologix GmbH, Ludwig Erhard Strasse 18, 20459 Hamburg, Germany.

Hosts

• https://click.argologix.com: the tracker's own host. Every path on it behaves the same; templates use /c.
• https://www.argologix.com/api/c: the address in older templates. It follows the same rules and keeps working, with one difference described under Refusals.

Parallel tracking

With parallel tracking, the browser goes straight to the landing page and requests the tracking URL in the background. When Google uses the tracking URL as a step before the landing page instead (sequential tracking), the browser follows the tracker's redirect. The tracker answers both the same way.

Tracking template

Set the template at campaign level (campaign settings, Campaign URL options, Tracking template). Argologix generates it for each tracking link, in this shape:

https://click.argologix.com/c?argo_lid=LNK_…&argo_cid={campaignid}&<campaign-type parameters>&argo_gclid={gclid}&redirection_url={lpurl}

redirection_url={lpurl} is always the last parameter. Google replaces {lpurl} with the ad's final URL, or with its own parallel-tracking address. Because the macro is not at the start of the template, Google escapes the characters in that address that would otherwise split it (such as ?, = and &), so a landing page with its own query string arrives as one value.

The parameters in the middle depend on the campaign type, because each type fills different ValueTrack macros:

Other campaign types get the Search set; a macro Google cannot fill for a campaign type arrives blank. A complete Search template:

https://click.argologix.com/c?argo_lid=LNK_…&argo_cid={campaignid}&argo_agid={adgroupid}&argo_crid={creative}&argo_tid={targetid}&argo_kw={keyword}&argo_mt={matchtype}&argo_net={network}&argo_dev={device}&argo_lp={loc_physical_ms}&argo_gclid={gclid}&redirection_url={lpurl}

Parameters

Google appends parameters of its own to the tracking URL: gclid when auto-tagging is on, and gb=1 on parallel-tracking requests. The tracker reads them and passes nothing on: nothing is ever added to the destination.

How requests are answered

• 302 Found, with Location set to the value of redirection_url, URL-decoded once. A double-encoded value (one that still starts with https%3A or http%3A after decoding) is decoded twice. Nothing is appended, and no other target is ever used.
• 400 Bad Request, text/plain, when the destination is refused; see Refusals.
• GET, HEAD and POST requests are answered the same way.
• Both http:// and https:// are answered.
• Every response carries Cache-Control: no-store. The tracker sets no cookies and reads none.

Which destinations are followed

redirection_url is checked before every redirect; the tracker is not an open redirect.

Followed for every link

• Amazon storefronts and their subdomains (such as www. and smile.):
  • amazon.com
  • amazon.ca
  • amazon.com.mx
  • amazon.com.br
  • amazon.co.uk
  • amazon.de
  • amazon.fr
  • amazon.it
  • amazon.es
  • amazon.nl
  • amazon.se
  • amazon.pl
  • amazon.com.be
  • amazon.com.tr
  • amazon.ae
  • amazon.sa
  • amazon.eg
  • amazon.in
  • amazon.co.jp
  • amazon.sg
  • amazon.com.au
  • amazon.ie
• Google's parallel-tracking address: exactly google.com or www.google.com, with a path starting /asnc/.

Followed when registered for the link

Any other host is followed only when it is registered for the link named by argo_lid: the link's destination domain, one of its allowed domains, or the advertiser's website. Subdomains are included, so a link registered for example.com also follows www.example.com and shop.example.com, but not example.com.evil.net or myexample.com. Only registrable domains can be registered: a public suffix such as co.uk or a shared hosting suffix such as myshopify.com would cover every site under it, so it is refused.

Refused

Everything else is refused with a 400, and so is any destination that is not a well-formed http or https address with a domain name (see Refusals). Amazon's short links (amzn.to, a.co) are not on the list above.

Refusals

A refused request gets HTTP 400 with Content-Type: text/plain and Cache-Control: no-store, and no redirect. The body has three lines: the reason token (unchanged, for scripts), one plain sentence, and a link to this section. For example:

blocked_allowlist
The destination's domain is not registered for this tracking link. Add it to the link's allowed domains in Argologix.
More: https://www.argologix.com/click-tracker#refusals

On click.argologix.com, a link that cannot be checked in time is answered link_lookup_failed. The older www.argologix.com/api/c answers unknown_link in that case. Both record the request in the advertiser's click log as link_lookup_failed.

Demo link

The public demo link LNK_ArgologixDemoLink00000 lets anyone try the tracker. Its destination domain is example.org and its allowed domains are example.com and example.net. The demo link is inactive, so demo requests are answered normally but not recorded.

1. 302 to https://example.org/, the demo link's destination domain.

   https://click.argologix.com/c?argo_lid=LNK_ArgologixDemoLink00000&redirection_url=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.org%2F

2. 302 to the Amazon product page: Amazon storefronts are followed for every link.

   https://click.argologix.com/c?argo_lid=LNK_ArgologixDemoLink00000&redirection_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fdp%2FB000000000

3. 400 blocked_allowlist: wikipedia.org is not registered for the demo link.

   https://click.argologix.com/c?argo_lid=LNK_ArgologixDemoLink00000&redirection_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wikipedia.org%2F

4. 400 unsubstituted_macro: a literal {lpurl}, as when a template is pasted into a browser.

   https://click.argologix.com/c?argo_lid=LNK_ArgologixDemoLink00000&redirection_url=%7Blpurl%7D

To see the response without following the redirect:

curl -i "https://click.argologix.com/c?argo_lid=LNK_ArgologixDemoLink00000&redirection_url=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.org%2F"

What is recorded

Each request that names an active Argologix link is recorded for that link's advertiser, whether it was redirected or refused. A record holds:

• Google's click identifiers (gclid, gbraid, wbraid) and the ad details from the template parameters above;
• the destination address (and, for an Amazon product page, its product ID), and the date and time of the click;
• the browser's user-agent string and preferred languages (Accept-Language);
• approximate location (country, region, city), looked up from the IP address in a database on our own servers. The IP address is stored only in shortened form (IPv4: the first three of four blocks; IPv6: the first 48 bits);
• the browser, operating system and device type read from the user-agent string, and whether the request appears to come from a bot;
• the HTTP method, whether it was a parallel-tracking call, whether it was redirected or refused (with the reason), and the results of internal consistency checks;
• the tracking URL as received.

Requests for unknown or inactive links, and requests over a per-address rate limit, are answered normally but not recorded. No cookies are set or read, and nothing is stored on the visitor's device.

Click records are deleted automatically 120 days after the click. The roles, legal bases and your rights are described in the privacy policy, section 15.

Abuse and security contact

To report abuse of the click tracker, such as a tracking URL that sends visitors somewhere unexpected, or a security issue, email info@argologix.com.

Changelog

• 2026-10-13 - dedicated host click.argologix.com, readable refusal messages, public demo link.