How to test if a google analytics code works?

Question

I made slight changes to the code described here in order to track outbound link clicks. This is my code:

function recordOutboundLink(link, label) {
  try {
    var myTracker=_gat._getTrackerByName();
    _gaq.push(['myTracker._trackEvent', 'Outbound Links', label, link.href ]);
    setTimeout('document.location = "' + link.href + '"', 100)
  }catch(err){}
}

Then I added it to my href tags like so:

<a href="http://example.com/user/5" onclick="recordOutboundLink(this, 'example.com');return false"></a>

I think it's not working, though. It's really hard to check if it works or not. How do I check if it's working or not?

EDIT: Using google analytics debugger for chrome I was able to see what's going on. It displays:

Account ID               : UA-XXXXX-X

It's odd because normal page tracking is working as expected. This is how I set up google analytics code:

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'my-id']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function() {
  var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
  ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
  var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();

Answer 1

Look for the __utm.gif tracking pixel request. A few different ways of doing this are:

• A web debugging proxy like Fiddler (my preference)
• The Network tab in Firebug or Chrome Developer Tools.
• The Google Analytics debugging script ga_debug.js will log tracking requests & errors.
• Google Analytics Tracking Code Debugger is a Chrome extension that enables ga_debug.js.

The analytics code on the page probably has a _trackPageview, so as the page loads you'll see an initial __utm.gif.

When _trackEvent fires, there should be a new __utm.gif request being made. Parameters to examine in __utm.gif URL are:

• utme=5(Outbound Linkslabellink.href) -- _trackEvent parameters
• utmac=UA-1234567-8 -- the analytics UID

Also, (as pointed out by @Eduardo), take a look at Google Analytics Basic Debugging