Forum Moderators: DixonJones
I have moved the ga.js initialization script to the top of the page, but this does not seem to make any difference. LiveHTTPHeaders shows that utm.gif is never loaded - i.e. the _trackPageview() function never gets called...
Here's what I have on my page:
<a href="http://www.example.com/links/track_01"
onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('Sponsors', 'AdPos_2', '/links/track_01');">
<img src="/images/ad-track_0.jpg" alt="">
<br>Buy my widgets</a>
edit/add When I replace onclick with onmousover the call triggers just fine and I can see utm.gif being loaded with a utmp having the 'Sponsor' value (where are the other two?)
I placed the following in the <head> section and used Firebug to set a breakpoint before window.location is set to its new value...
<script type="text/javascript">
function redirPage(redir_id,redir_link) {
pageTracker._trackPageview(redir_id);
window.location = redir_link;
}
</script>
Lo and behold, utm.gif is requested and Google sends it back.
I'm almost tempted to pull the image with an AJAX request and then wait until the callback to load the redirect. There must be something easier, right?
The solution, as presented by the "Official" (?) Google Website Optimizer blog, relies on creating a specific pageTracker object, adding a 100ms setTimeout before loading the external URL, and the customary return false; to prevent the non-javascript link to be loaded.
Resulting in something like:
<script type="text/javascript">
function doGoal(that) {
try {
var pageTracker=_gat._getTracker("UA-123456-1");
pageTracker._trackPageview("http://www.example.com");
setTimeout('document.location = "' + that.href + '"', 100)
}catch(err){}
}
</script><a href="www.example.com" onclick='doGoal(this);return false;'>Click me</a>
Am I the only one who thinks this is a quite minger solution?
I have often wondered how this is handled as well, when the redirect takes place before the code can execute.
The code makes sense because it executes very quickly after the link is clicked and then attributes the referrer information manually. (I am assuming you had to add this)
On one of my sites, I use it for external links to local resources to get a general feel for what people do on that section of the site. On another I want to track banner click-thru ratios from Google analytics, in addition to server logs.
The set timeout function delays the request long enough for the click to be registered. I increased it to 500ms however. My own tests showed that 100 was not enough in all cases.
Still think that if you are using Ajax on the site anyway, you might as well load the Google tracking gif with it, and then use the callback function that follows it to jump off the site.
