refresh_ce meaning and origin

Question

does anybody know meaning and origin of http url parameter named "refresh_ce"? This character typically appears immediately after question mark character. I think it's generated by meta refresh (or javascript) in order to let server know "it'not the first access" to that page. who created this name? Is it a standard de-facto? I couldn't find any important info googling this term.

If it's something ancient, is it still important (for legacy browsers/systems)?

Thank you.

Answer 1

At least in Italy, this parameter is linked with the standards of the local publishing/advertising market. These standard state that pages are allowed to refresh every 5 minutes (or more). Such refreshes are used to bump up page and ad impressions and to show a new set of ads to users. The refresh_ce parameter is used to identify refreshed page impressions, which are excluded from some analyses and counts.

Another similar parameter is refresh_ce-awe, which marks the impressions that are generated when only some contents (not the whole page) is refreshed. This usually happens when the users browse photo galleries.