logging hyperlink clicks

[Doug Easterbrook]

rob.

my first thought was that you wanted to know who clicked some links to PDF’s for marketing or sales purposes  — and that who was a specific person who logged in.

when you said:

> The next stage will be to have the option of doing this to/from a new tab or window.


there is also google analytics that tracks the use of each web page and link/redirector as well.       you just add it to your web pages and you can see where people come from and go to, even if they leave your site and come back.

the downside is that google has the data.  the upside is, that if you want to be found, google has your data.


a lot of our theatre venues use it to track what kind of shows people clicked on to see interest and how that progresses to checkouts and purchases.

and.. its free.



Doug Easterbrook
Arts Management Systems Ltd.
mailto:doug at artsman.com
http://www.artsman.com
Phone (403) 650-1978

> On Nov 10, 2022, at 2:57 AM, Rob Mostyn <mostyn at platformis.net> wrote:
> 
> Thank you Caroline, thank you Doug and thank you Technical Support,
> 
> We will start working on this next week.  Thank you for the heads up on TinyUrl Doug.  I knew it provided smaller links but I didn’t know they get a count of them for you.  This would be the easiest way to implement a version of this but I have my own page reference tracking system and I would prefer to get these counts integrated with that.
> 
> The first task will be get the call made to Omnis to log the clicked link and issue a redirect for the user to see the desired page.
> 
> The next stage will be to have the option of doing this to/from a new tab or window.
> 
> I will let you all know how it goes when complete.
> 
> Cheers,
> Rob
> 
>> On 3 Nov 2022, at 16:25, Doug Easterbrook via omnisdev-en <omnisdev-en at lists.omnis-dev.com> wrote:
>> 
>> hey Rob.
>> 
>> you are describing basically what tinyurl will do for you for a fee.  https://tinyurl.com/app/howit <https://tinyurl.com/app/howit>
>> 
>> effectively, you’ve be making something like tinyulr there the URL to the outside document is NOT actually the link to the outside document.    it is a link back to your web site that:
>> 1) records the click
>> 2) does a redirect to the page you want them to.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> eg,  suppose you want. the URL to go to omnis.net <http://omnis.net/>
>> 
>> you make a URL to.  robmostyn.com/wyfwhlywe <http://robmostyn.com/wyfwhlywe>
>> or robmostyn.com <http://robmostyn.com/>?doc=wyfwhlywe <http://robmostyn.com/wyfwhlywe>
>> 
>> 
>> where wyfwhlywe <http://robmostyn.com/wyfwhlywe> is a path call on your server.
>> or, in the second example, ‘doc' is a path that your server will respond to.
>> 
>> in either case (depending which you implement)
>> 
>> you now have the ability to track somebody clicked the link because the traffic first went through your server
>> 
>> and
>> 
>> you can issue a redirect to the right URL after you look it up.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> you’d make a web page that has the redirect in it and issue a web response code of 301 or 302 instead of a response code of 200
>> 
>> 
>> heres a web page that talks about a ‘redirect’ in a web page
>> https://blog.hubspot.com/website/html-redirect <https://blog.hubspot.com/website/html-redirect>
>> 
>> 
>> there are likely a number of more efficient ways to do it, but the gist of this is
>> 
>> 1) use a URL that goes back to your web site with a tag on it to tell you which web site you really want the user to go to
>> 
>> 2) when you get that hit, count the access to it
>> 
>> 3) make a web page that your return to the user that has a redirect in it to where you want it to really go to.
>> 
>> 4) and you may need to change the return code from a 200 to a 302
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Doug Easterbrook
>> Arts Management Systems Ltd.
>> mailto:doug at artsman.com
>> http://www.artsman.com
>> Phone (403) 650-1978
>> 
>>> On Nov 3, 2022, at 4:39 AM, Rob Mostyn <mostyn at platformis.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Dear $Listers,
>>> 
>>> This is a problem I’ve thought about before but never actually implemented.  Now I really want to implement it but I’m not sure how to do it.
>>> 
>>> It is an ultra thin application.
>>> Omnis returns HTML to a browser to render.
>>> On this page I want to present a number of links to external resources (other websites, documents on the web etc).
>>> Ok… that is easy by providing hyperlinks on the web page to these other resources.
>>> But I want to log what links gave been clicked.  Google does this on its search results.
>>> 
>>> LOGIC
>>> Clicking on the link calls Omnis.
>>> A parameter to the call denotes which link.
>>> Omnis is invoked and the link can be logged.
>>> But how do I return to the browser with “execute this hyperlink on a new tab/window”, leaving the previously despatched HTML as is?
>>> Or I could return the previously generated HTML but how do I invoke the browser to follow the link?
>>> 
>>> Has anyone else tried to do this?  I know there is a way to tell  a browser to redirect but I don’t know how this works.
>>> 
>>> Help!
>>> Rob Mostyn
>>> 
>>> +44 (0)20 3233 0044
>>> 
>>> As Carl Sagan once said:
>>> One of the great commandments of science is, "Mistrust arguments from authority." ... Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else.
>>> 
>>> _____________________________________________________________
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>> 
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