Facebook Click ID
The question I often see is: "What is fbclid and how is it used?".
I have seen the fbclid addition to the URL as reported in Google Analytics but I had not documented it before now.
My interpretation is that a Facebook user put a link to my Village Name page on their Facebook page and a "friend" in Sweden clicked on the link.
There seems to be a Google equivalent gclid. What information is stored in this addition to the URL is not known but there is a desire from some webmasters to decode its contents. It is not clear from the Meta Developers website, Engineering at Meta, what the exact contents are.
What does the code mean?
There is nothing to be found on the Facebook Engineering website if you search for FBCLID. I previously looked at their site with respect to the "shimming" of external links
In the example shown above the code is purposely cryptic. It undoubtedly means something to Facebook but they are not likely to let you in on what that is!
The code is likely to contain information such as the identity of the Facebook user that clicked the link and where they clicked it. Obviously to reveal this information in an unencrypted form would not only violate all privacy laws it would also expose information that the website owner does not need to know.
The information that Google Analytics provides should be sufficient.
What Facebook does with this information is another issue. The case with the NHS, below, is an example.
The sharing of information without user knowledge
The article NHS trusts shared patient details with Facebook without consent - Shanti Das - The Guardian Sat 27 May 2023
What I find amusing is that when the news media find an instance that data is being extracted from Internet user activity that there is a certain level of "moral outrage". A case in point is the fact that NHS Trusts had been using Facebook to collect information on patients and their personal details were "shared" with Facebook.
Stackoverflow and decoding fbclid
The article on Stackoverflow was interesting but I am not sure why what they were suggesting would help.
Knowing how to decode what the URL you see in your logs would possibly just confirm what I saying here in that it is waste of time to attempt to beat Facebook at their own game.
The fact that you see a server log entry that contains the fbclid reference is probably all that you can know about how the Facebook user arrived at your website.
Records of information sent to the firm by NHS websites reveal it includes data which – when linked to an individual – could reveal personal medical details. It was collected from patients who visited hundreds of NHS webpages about HIV, self-harm, gender identity services, sexual health, cancer, children’s treatment and more. It also includes details of when web users clicked buttons to book an appointment, order a repeat prescription, request a referral or to complete an online counselling course. Millions of patients are potentially affected. This weekend, 17 of the 20 NHS trusts that were using Meta Pixel confirmed they had pulled the tracking tool from their websites. Eight issued apologies to patients. Multiple trusts said they had originally installed the tracking pixels to monitor recruitment or charity campaigns and were not aware that they were sending patient data to Facebook. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is investigating.