Tracking users across multiple websites

tracking visitors across multiple websites

[gdawg]

I am trying to figure out a way to effectively track visitors across multiple websites. My company has 8 different websites and I am trying to develop a way to track visitor behavior across all of our websites. My understanding is that you can only have one cookie assigned to one domain. My first method would be to create a cookie with a unique visitor id and log that into our database. The only problem is if the user goes to one of our other websites that cookie would be replaced with a new cookie for that domain and would get a new visitor id. So I would appreciate any suggestions on how to overcome this limitation. Thanks in advance!

[larryn]

Would the users be going to the other web sites from your site? If so, why not make the session id (from the cookie) an additional parameter in the link to the other site.

The only other way, and thats not going to work to often is to use a third-party cookie that is the same across all the sites.

[gdawg]

Thanks for your response! Users would sometimes go to the other sites through a link, but I am looking for the larger picture of users going to site#1 on this date and then coming back and going to site#2 two months later. Ideally, we want to capture information on a specific user and associate this information with that users across any of our web properties. I would think there is a way to do this because for instance in the auto industry. Many car manufacturers have multiple websites with seperate domains and I would almost bet they collect information about all the users and somehow associate that information so they can create a customizable experience.

[larryn]

gdawg,

Tracking across multiple web sites with different domains as you describe requires the use of a 'third-party' cookie. While there is nothing wrong with that, they are frequently ignored depending upon the individual user's browser setting (see "Ignore third party cookies" in your browsers's preferences). You could try and see what results you get - after all there is no magic bullet that works for all audiences.

If it were my client, I'd suggest using a combination of session ID's in the query of an intersite referring URL, and creating smarter session ID generation code that will use that ID if available. If they enter the site directly (without a session ID), you could try for a third party ID, but I would still insist on duplicating that ID locally on the site in case their browser rejects third party cookies. If all the sites are hosted on the same server, this might be able to be achieved with internal programming, but I'm would have to try it to find out.

Good Luck!