Track Outbound Link clicks on HTML Page

[Graham]

Is it possible to track the click throughs made on a standard text link from a html page.

I would like to ensure that the link is a clean link, and wondered if there are any (very) straightforward methods of acheiving this.

TIA

Graham

[Graham]

Further to the above, I use Urchin to provide webstats and have found the following information on their site:

If you publish advertising banners on your site, there is an easy way for you to track which banners visitors click on to leave your site and which advertisers they visit.

First, make sure that you have installed the UTM-5 (available at ftp://ftp.urchin.com/urchin5/utm-5/) on your website.

Next, you will need to add some code to each of the banners.

For an animated GIF or other type of static banner ad, you would add the following code:

<a href="http://www.advertisersite.com"
onClick="javascript:urchinTracker
('/bannerads/advertisername/bannername');">

This code causes each click on the banner to be logged as though it were a pageview named /bannerads/advertisername/bannername. It is a good idea to log all of your advertising banners into a logical directory structure such as /bannerads/the name of the advertiser/the name of the banner. This way, you will be able to easily identify the number of referrals to each advertiser.

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Would it be possible to add this to the text link, however what would be placed in the onClick event?

Graham

[mikeyb]

Hi Graham,

That code would work for a text link as it is.
<a href="http://www.advertisersite.com" onClick="javascript:urchinTracker ('/bannerads/advertisername/bannername');">This is a text link</a>

I guess it would just be logged as if it was a normal banner, but if you give your text links a "bannername" different than real banners, you'll be able to find them easier.

[Graham]

Thanks Mikeyb

That code would work for a text link as it is.
<a href="http://www.advertisersite.com" onClick="javascript:urchinTracker ('/bannerads/advertisername/bannername');">This is a text link</a>

So I don't need to change the ('/bannerads/advertisername/bannername') part at all, or can this be made more descriptive, to allow me to locate the clicks easier in my stats program?

Graham

[mikeyb]

Hi Graham,

I must say I'm only guessing with all I'm saying in my posts here! I don't know/use Urchin.

I would imagine that the annerads/advertisername/bannername part is just a desciption for you? So you can search through your logs?

[Graham]

Hi Mikeyb

Thanks for your time. You are correct, that will be the part displayed. I managed to get this verified by the Urchin support team.

Now just need to wait to see if anyone clicks through so I can check this out.

Graham

[teaperson]

I'd like to do this on my site as well -- did this work?

[4specs]

I think the question here is to have the browser visit the normal part of the link and at the same time trigger a script that logs the referral.

Urchin has obviously done it - I have been playing all morning and cannot find the magic simple code to make the 2 actions work.

Suggestions?

[Graham]

I'd like to do this on my site as well -- did this work?

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I have now sorted out this issue.

Yes, it will work if you are using Urchin for your tracking.

I am using Urchin version 5x, and was advised that I need to include the latest Urchin urchinTracker function which can be downloaded and added to your root folder from ftp://ftp.urchin.com/urchin5/utm-6/

If anyone still needs advice on this, drop a reply on the board

Thanks for all those who replied.

Graham

[zgb999]

Is there any solution available for Webtrends?

[jdubo79]

Will a link such as

<a href="http://www.advertisersite.com"
onClick="javascript:urchinTracker
('/bannerads/advertisername/bannername');">

Be spidered by the search engines or no?

[larryn]

jdubo,

In my experience, search engines usually don't follow javascript links.

Larry