Best practice: How to track outbound links?

Question

How do you track outbound links for your web site, since the request is logged on the destination server, not yours?

Answer 1

You can add a quick JQuery script to the page that will track external links and can either redirect them to a file on your server that will track the link and then forward to it, or add an ajax request that will submit on click for external links, and track them that way.

See:

• http://www.prodevtips.com/2008/08/19/tracking-clicks-with-jquery-and-google-analytics/
• https://web.archive.org/web/20090214024330/http://www.justskins.com/development/how-to-track-clicks-on-outgoing-links/132

Answer 2

Method #1: target="_blank", onclick and Google Analytics Events

Format your outgoing links with the following attributes:

<a href="http://www.example.com" target="_blank" onclick="trackOutgoing(this);">outgoing</a>

Define a javascript tracking function (requires google analytics to be loaded already):

function trackOutgoing(el) {
  ga('send', 'event', {eventCategory: 'outbound',
                       eventAction: 'send',
                       eventLabel: el.getAttribute('href'),
                       eventValue: 1});
};

Pros:

1. Does NOT interfere with normal link behavior
2. Does NOT require redirecting to another url

Cons:

1. The onclick is not guaranteed to execute (user or browser could terminate the main window)

Method #2: Redirecting with Javascript and Google Analytics Callbacks

Format your outgoing links with the following attributes:

<a href="http://www.example.com" onclick="trackOutgoingAndRedirect(this); return false;">outgoing</a>

Define a javascript tracking function (requires google analytics to be loaded already):

function trackOutgoingAndRedirect(el) {
  var url = el.getAttribute('href');
  ga('send', 'event', {eventCategory: 'outbound',
                       eventAction: 'send',
                       eventLabel: url,
                       eventValue: 1,
                       hitCallback: function() { document.location = url; }});
}

Pros:

1. Does not require target="_blank"
2. Higher chance of your event being registered with Google Analytics (compared to Method #1)

Cons:

1. Overrides the default behavior of links with return false;
2. Cannot open outgoing links in a new window

Method #3: Using a Redirect URL

Format your outgoing links with the following attributes:

<a href="/redirect?url=http://www.example.com">outgoing</a>

On your site you will need to implement a redirect script which is beyond the scope of this answer.

Your redirect script would most likely track the outgoing link and then redirect to the provided url.

Pros:

1. No Javascript required
2. Does NOT require Google Analytics
3. Does NOT interfere with the normal link behavior

Cons:

1. Harder to trigger Google Analytics Events
2. Links do not link to their original URL. Which may have negative SEO implications.