Do your share buttons carry tracking?
Share buttons usually share the plain page address. When that link is pasted into WhatsApp, Slack or an email, the visit often arrives with no referrer and analytics files it as Direct. Paste a page from your site and this free checker reads its share links, then shows which ones add UTM tags or use a short link and which share the bare URL.
Free, no account. We read the page like a search engine does: buttons a script draws after the page loads can't be read.
Three steps.
Use an article, product or event page, not the homepage, since that is where people share from.
The checker loads the page the way a search engine does and picks out the LinkedIn, X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Reddit, Telegram, Bluesky, Threads and email share links in the HTML.
Each link is marked tagged (it carries utm_source), short link, or bare URL, with a plain-language verdict for the page.
Why shares land as Direct
Analytics tells traffic apart by its referrer or by the UTM tags on the link. A link pasted into a chat app, a Slack channel or an email usually carries no referrer, and a bare page URL carries no tags, so the visit has no source and is filed as Direct. A share link that adds utm_source, or that points at a short link which redirects to a tagged URL, keeps its source.
What the checker can and can’t tell you
It reads the share links present in the page’s HTML. Buttons that a script draws after the page loads aren’t in the HTML, so for those it names the widget and tells you how to test a button by hand. It doesn’t see your analytics, so it can’t say how much Direct traffic your shares cause, only whether the links are set up to avoid it.
If your buttons are bare
Add UTM tags to every share link, or use buttons that create a tagged short link per page and network. Whooshly’s share kit does the second: one script, a short link for each page on each network, and a dashboard of shares and clicks back. It works before you sign up.
Make every share a tracked link
Whooshly’s share kit turns each share into a short link with UTM tags for its network, so you see which pages get shared and what the shares bring back. It’s free to start, with your own domain on Core.
Frequently asked questions
Does the checker store the pages I check?
No. It fetches the page when you ask and keeps the result for an hour so a popular page isn’t fetched over and over. Nothing ties a check to you, and the share text never includes the address you checked.
Why did it find no buttons on a page that has them?
Many sites draw their share buttons with a script after the page loads, which a page-source check can’t see. Press a button and look for utm_source in the address that opens: if it’s missing, the share is a bare URL.
Is AddThis still working?
Oracle terminated AddThis on May 31, 2023 and asked sites to remove its code. The checker flags any page that still loads it.
Do UTM tags on a shared link show up in GA4?
Yes. A visit that arrives with utm_source and utm_medium is attributed to that source and medium instead of Direct.
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