Tracking clicks - and back links

Make them co-exist

[mrdch]

Hi,

I did read about 50 posts on this subject - and still unsure of the right answer - if there is such a creature... Please help!

Here goes:

Site X gets quite a lot of requests for links from other sites. Some are agreed to - and entered into a database. Yup - it's a highly dynamic site!

Site X wanted to track every click-through that its users happened to make - on ANY of the sites that are shown to them. To that end, every click goes through the folloiwing script:

www.siteX.com/scripts/cgi_gotosite.php?scid=12345&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.externalsite.com&pos=4&status=1

So now site X can determine, for example, what percentage of people actually click on the first site, and such like. Being dynamic, the actual sites CHANGE from user to user - according to the user's preferences.

It worked absolutely great until site owners started to complain that the script defeats the whole purpose of having a back link! What's the point of having a link if the Search Engines don't see it?

So my question is:

What POSSIBLE ways are there to satisfy BOTH requirements:
- Get accurate click measurements
- Have SEs recognise all the links to the external sites.

Thanks!

MC

[Brett_Tabke]

Reduce the number of parameters down under 3 (preferrably 1).

redirect.cgi?url=foo.com

[mrdch]

Thanks Brett - I believe that Google explicitly suggest to keep the number small.

OK - suppose the number is just 1. Will the SE recognise it as a link to a site and count it towards its PR or position?

MC

[mrdch]

Someone suggested to me using a Javascript to capture the OnClick event as a neat way out of the problem. Anyone knows what are the chances of not getting this event, due to user disabling Javascript?

Is it true that people that use a proxy server ALSO don't get Javascript enabled?

Thanks!

MC

[Eric_Winter]

Brett, do you know if the 1 parameter solution counts the link at the same weight as it does if it weren't written as a parameter?

If known not, or if unknown (if you know what I mean). An onclick solution might be worth pursuing . . . (if only for the fun of it.)

MRdch, could you sketch out the onclick proposition in more detail? How would you capture the onclick event if they were on their way out of your site? I would think that you would lose your chance to write anything when they leave . . . unless you have a javascript that delays the clickthrough until you write the data back to your server - via webbug.

The question would be whether have an onclick invalidates the link in the eyes of the SE. I doubt it.

Another question would be whether the delay that you would need for this technique was acceptable to your users?

If not, you might write the data to a cookie and read it next time they came. . . seems like a lame answer, but if your traffic were high enough, i.e. REALLY high, your sample might be enough to get actionable data. . . if your traffic were not so high, I'd definitely go with the parameter approach if you couldn't get onclick to work.

. . . I presume you can't rely on the click through site to help you out. If you could, there would be a bunch of ways to achieve both goals, i.e. to get the click data back to your server.