I love this module, but it has a major shortcoming for me: I prefer to track clicks to external links as page views, rather than as Events. For example, if I want to track a click to an external link as a Goal in Analytics (such as a click to the iTunes App Store), that click needs to be registered as a page view, as Analytics doesn't support Events as Goals. This is really important when it comes to conversion tracking.
So, I wrote a modification to this module to allow Link Tracking to be done as Page Views as opposed to Events. When this feature is activated, external links are tracked as page views to "/outgoing/URL" in Analytics (where URL is the external URL). Downloads and Mail links are tracked similarly. I made this feature turned off by default. The patch might not adhere to coding standards, but please take a look at it, and consider it for future inclusion. I'm sure there are other people who could use this!
| Comment | File | Size | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | google_analytics_track_links_as_pages.patch | 3.61 KB | chadwick wood |
Comments
Comment #1
chadwick wood commentedLooks like the patch came un-attached during Preview! Here it is.
Comment #2
hass commentedI changed this in past as it was a broken link that was tracked and site overlay does not show the correct link. I wish Google would provide a generic way to track outgoing/download links. Until this becomes available - this is by design.
Comment #3
chadwick wood commentedFair enough, but doesn't it really come down to having Site Overlay be broken vs. having a hobbled Goal tracking ability? My patch at least gives the user the choice as to which is more important to them. As this module exists, without my functionality added the module is insufficient for my needs. I care much more about goal tracking than the site overlay, and I'm sure there are others out there who need the same.
Comment #4
Vladimir1980 commentedComment #5
Vladimir1980 commentedComment #6
hass commented@Chadwick Wood: how have you ever managed to use outgoing links in readable way in past? Previous versions tracked outgoing links as normal page links and this make outgoing links completely unreadable and hidden if there are other pages with many clicks. Tracked links like "/outgoing/example.com/foo/fff/aasss.html" goes under in the masses of other trackings, clutter your site statistics (!), break site overlay and so on and so on.
Comment #7
hass commentedWe already use this way: http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55527...
This solution make sure that outbound links are not tracked as yours. Tracking outbound links as yours would clutter your statistics and your marketing have the fealing this are their clicks and tell everyone "we have 100.000 page views per month" - but in real it's only 5.000 as you have many and good outbound links on your site.
Outbound clicks are per definition not clicks on your site. Hope this makes understanding a bit easier.