Track Outgoing Links Without A Redirector Script

Hi,

I currently have a 301 redirect setup on my server such that typing a url such as:
domainname/jump/www.google.com
takes me to the google home page.  This enables me to log outgoing clicks.  However, I will like to know if anybodyu on JOS involves in maintaining a site has a method that does not add this extra layer of indirection.

I am thinking of an elaborate system involving IFRAMES, Javascript and cookies that expire infrequently but ... is there an easier way?  I can't be the first person to want to log outgoing clicks without the redirection layer, or am I?

Regards,
Seun Osewa

Seun Osewa (afriguru.com)
Wednesday, April 7, 2004

You could do it with JavaScript, but why not just do it the way you've got it set up?  That's how most sites do it because it's the simplest, and most likely to work across any web browser client, with the least amount of testing.

Ryan
Wednesday, April 7, 2004

your request sounds kind of odd. I have a script that logs the requests with other info into a rdbms so "thems" can then run queries against it. The way it used to be done was I had to get the log files (and they'd remember to ask me after the logs had been rotated to the backup server and I'd have to pull them out of the backup) and then run some bizarre regex and then ... a lot of work for little imho. So I did the redirect and thus logged more info than the users got before and they could export this into excel etc and now I never get called to do what I thought was real dull work.

me
Wednesday, April 7, 2004

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