Random codes appearing at the end of URLs (WordPress site)

Question

I use WordPress on my website and I've noticed the following code at the end of URLs when viewing pages/posts. The codes vary depending on the browser (Chrome, Safari and Firefox.)

• Chrome: #.T08yOCM5CDU
• Safari: #.T08yRZg5D8s
• Firefox: #.T08yaiM5CDU

Is it simply a way for Google to track my site's hits?

Are my readers seeing this?

My site's URL is http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/

Edited to reflect the plugins that my website is using:

• AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget
• Adminer
• Disqus Comment System
• Donate Plus
• Facebook Revised Open Graph Meta Tag
• Front Page Category
• Google XML Sitemaps
• HTML in Author Bio
• Image Widget
• Just Another Author Widget
• No category parents
• Outbrain
• Page Links To
• Quick Page/Post Redirect DEV
• Relevanssi
• Search & Replace
• Widget Context
• Woo Recent Posts
• WP-PageNavi
• WP Easy Gallery

Answer 1

I noticed this on a site I worked on - The client had enabled 'Track address bar shares' in the addthis plugin. Un-ticking this option removed the codes from the sites URLs

Answer 2

Hmm... It's not listed, but your Outbrain rater script is causing this.

in your page source: http://widgets.outbrain.com/OutbrainRater.js

I found this by looking at that file's source and here's the culprit:

(var e="",f=0;f<8;f++){var g=Math.floor(Math.random()*61);e+="0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXTZabcdefghiklmnopqrstuvwxyz".substring(g,g+1)

In your index.php or header.php file you should see the following:

<script type='text/javascript'>
    <!--
    //OBSTART:do_NOT_remove_this_comment
    var OutbrainPermaLink="http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/2012/02/29/africa-nuclear-security-and-the-2012-summit/";
    if(typeof(OB_Script)!='undefined'){OutbrainStart();} else {
    var OB_PlugInVer="7.0.0.0_Regular";;var OB_raterMode="stars";var OB_recMode="rec";var OBITm="1297817213";var OB_Script=true;var OB_langJS="http://widgets.outbrain.com/lang_en.js";document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='http://widgets.outbrain.com/OutbrainRater.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));}
    //OBEND:do_NOT_remove_this_comment
    //-->
    </script>

• Copy/Paste it into Notepad (so you can save it if you really want it)
• delete it from the file you edited.
• Clear any cache you have (Ctrl + Shift + Delete)
• Clear your domain cookies (just to be safe)
• load your site.

This should take care of your issue.

It also looks like you have an outbrain plugin on your site: no category parents, outbrain this may be the source of this as well.