Querying online dictionary - seemingly random numbers in URL

(not sure if this is the ideal sub for this question; the code is from Gabe Wyner's fluent-forever.com/multi-search/)

q is the query (word or short phrase), e.g.

window.open("http://exampledic1.com/content/" + q); window.open("http://exampledic2.com/word/" + q + "/#en");

This works fine for sites like Wiktionary, WordReference, or Google Translate.

However, larousse.fr is adding some seemingly random numbers to the URL, eg

Without this number, one gets an error message because the Replacement Character U+FFFD appears for non ASCII characters (v�rit�):

Does anybody know why this number is there? Maybe it is NOT random?

Is it to prevent automated queries?

submitted by /u/lerlan
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