Receiving unexpected server calls - adobe

Question

In adobe analytics I try to implement link tracking for all links can be found in a page using this:
$(document).on('click', 'a', function() {
s.tl(this, 'e', 'external', null, 'navigate');
return false;
});
Try to test it using a page like this

Answer 1

The extra calls are likely coming from how you have Adobe Analytics configured. There are a handful of config variables that will cause extra requests depending on how you set them (on their own and/or in relation to each other).
Here is a listing of Adobe Analytics variables for reference. These are the ones for you to look at:
s.trackDownloadLinks - If this is enabled, any standard links with href value ending in value(s) specified in s.linkDownloadFileTypes will trigger a request on click. Generally, this is to enable automatic tracking for links that prompt a visitor to download something (e.g. a pdf file).
s.trackExternalLinks - If this is enabled, any standard links with href NOT matched in s.linkInternalFilters OR matched with s.linkExternalFilters will trigger a request on click. Generally, this is to enable automatic tracking for links you count as visitor navigating off your site(s).
s.linkInternalFilters - If you have either of the above enabled, clicking on links may trigger a request, depending on values here vs. what you enabled above vs. what you have in s.linkExternalFilters. Generally, this should include values that represent links you do NOT want to count as navigating off your site(s).
s.linkExternalFilters - If you have either of the above enabled, clicking on links may trigger a request, depending on values here vs. what you enabled above vs. what you have in s.linkInternalFilters. Generally, you should never set this. It's intended for edge-use-cases for people who know what they are doing and have a complex site eco-system and definitions of what counts as internal vs. external.
s.trackInlineStats - This is for clickmap/heatmap tracking. This may or may not trigger an extra request, depending on how a lot of different stars align.
In addition to these, you may already have some plugins or other custom code that triggers click tracking. For example, there are linkHandler, exitLinkTracker, and downloadLinkTracker plugins that you may have included in your code that may play a part in extra requests being triggered.
Finally, more recent versions of Adobe Analytics code may trigger multiple requests depending on how much data you are trying to send in the request (whereas older versions just truncated the request, which resulted in data loss).
In any case, the long story short here is if you are looking to roll your own custom link tracking, you should make sure the above variables/plugins are removed or otherwise disabled.
But on the note of rolling your own custom link tracking.. I'm getting a sense of de ja vu here, like I already made a comment about this relatively recently in another post, over this exact same code... but generally speaking, this is not a good idea:
$(document).on('click', 'a', function() {
s.tl(this, 'e', 'external', null, 'navigate');
return false;
});
You are wholesale implementing exit link tracking on every single link of your page. And you are giving them all the same generic "external" label. And the native exit link reports are pretty limited and useless to begin with, so ideally you should also pop an eVar or something with the exit url or something.
But more importantly.. unless literally every single link on your pages are links that navigate your visitor off-site, this is not going to be useful to you in reports in general, and it's even going to ruin a lot of your reports.
I can't believe (or accept) that you really want to count every link on your pages as exit links..

Answer 2

I assume s.tl does an ajax call.
It should then forward the link to the href of the link - if the link is allowed to be followed immediately, the ajax call will be interrupted which seems to be what you see
You may want to change to
$(document).on('click', 'a', function(e) {
e.preventDefault();
s.tl(this, 'e', 'external', null, 'navigate');
});
I found this article when looking to see what s.tl is https://marketing.adobe.com/developer/forum/general-topic-forum/difference-between-s-t-and-s-tl-function