Typing the bare apply.guilford.edu does not reach Slate at all. It redirects off the domain to the marketing admissions page — and discards every URL parameter on the way, including the Google Ads click ID. Two separate problems, one redirect.
The application itself is healthy and lives at apply.guilford.edu/apply/. Only the bare domain is affected.
The application system is healthy and lives at
apply.guilford.edu/apply/. But the root of the domain redirects visitors off
Slate entirely, to the marketing admissions page — and strips the URL parameters on the way.
| URL | Result | |
|---|---|---|
| /apply/ | 200 — “Application Management” | The application. Working. |
| /register/?id=… | 200 | Enquiry & event forms. Working. |
| /portal/campus_visit | 200 | Visit scheduling. Working. |
| / (bare domain) | 302 → www.guilford.edu/admissions | Leaves Slate; parameters discarded. |
1 · Is that destination intended? Anyone who types apply.guilford.edu from a
flyer, a QR code, or a college fair almost certainly expects to land on the application. Today they
land on a marketing page and have to find “Apply” again. If the intent is that this address opens
the application, the root should point at https://apply.guilford.edu/apply/. We cannot
tell from outside whether the current destination was a deliberate choice — please confirm.
2 · The redirect discards the query string, whichever destination you choose. That part is a defect regardless and is covered on the next page.
$ curl -sSL -o /dev/null -w '%{url_effective}\n' \
"https://apply.guilford.edu/?utm_source=test&gclid=ABC123"
https://www.guilford.edu/admissions ← off Slate, parameters gone
$ curl -sSL -o /dev/null -w '%{url_effective}\n' \
"https://apply.guilford.edu/apply/?utm_source=test"
https://apply.guilford.edu/apply/?utm_source=test ← the application, parameters kept
The chain from the bare domain is three hops, the first of them insecure:
302 → http://www.guilford.edu/admission/, then 301 to HTTPS, then
301 to /admissions.
The 302 is issued by Slate, not by the web server behind www.guilford.edu and
not by a CDN — the response sets _node, _hash and _hashV,
which are Technolutions session cookies. So the redirect is configured in Slate, and the change
belongs with whoever administers it. Tickets like this otherwise bounce between the web team and
enrollment for a fortnight.
Beyond sending applicants to the wrong place, the same redirect destroys two kinds of tracking. The first is the expensive one.
gclid is the click identifier Google Ads stamps on every paid click. It is how
Ads later matches that click to an application or enquiry. Strip it and Ads never learns the
click converted — so the spend reports zero conversions, and because Smart Bidding
optimises on conversion signal, the algorithm is actively being taught that those clicks are
worthless.
GA4 reads utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign to
attribute a session. Without them the visit is credited to whatever the referrer says — usually
Direct. The visitor still counts; they just count as though nobody sent them, which
understates every campaign that uses this address.
The first hop targets http:// rather than https://, so there is a
brief plaintext request before HSTS upgrades it. Collapsing the chain to one hop also removes
two round trips from every visit.
Once you have settled the destination (page 2), the redirect must append the incoming
query string and target HTTPS in a single hop. Our recommendation is that the root opens the
application — https://apply.guilford.edu/apply/ — but that is your call, and the
query-string requirement holds either way.
# nginx — the omitted $is_args$args is the usual culprit return 301 https://apply.guilford.edu/apply/$is_args$args; # Apache mod_alias — preserves the query string by default Redirect 301 / https://apply.guilford.edu/apply/ # Cloudflare Bulk Redirect / Rules Enable "Preserve query string" on the rule
$ curl -sSL -o /dev/null -w '%{url_effective} (%{num_redirects} hop)\n' \
"https://apply.guilford.edu/?utm_source=test&gclid=ABC123"
expected — parameters intact, one hop, HTTPS:
https://apply.guilford.edu/apply/?utm_source=test&gclid=ABC123 (1 hop)
Substitute your chosen destination. Parameters present, one hop, HTTPS throughout — and please re-run the second command from page 2 to confirm the working paths are unchanged.
We have verified the defect, not its volume. Whether current advertising points at the bare
apply.guilford.edu depends on the landing URLs held by your enrollment-marketing
vendor — a question they can answer in minutes, and the answer turns this from a certainty into a
figure. We raised it regardless: a memorable vanity domain is exactly what ends up on printed
material and QR codes.