We utilize the LinkedIn "Customized URL" to allow sharing of articles to LinkedIn users' feeds. (https://developer.linkedin.com/docs/share-on-linkedin) The encoded URL that is passed into the "url" parameter contains our own tracking parameters.
https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedailybeast.com%2Farticles%2F2015%2F03%2F26%2Famerica-loses-no-matter-who-wins-the-next-great-middle-east-war.html%3Fvia%3Ddesktop%26social%3DLinkedin
Unfortunately, the URL's to our articles shared in this way have been stripped of the query parameters.
The presumed reason is that LinkedIn ingests our og:url metadata and uses that canonical URL for the link that is shared. We'd prefer to override this, but the docs seem to indicate that that is only possible if you use the REST API. We'd prefer to avoid that since we are only trying to share articles to LinkedIn. Can someone tell me if there is any other way to incorporate our tracking query params using the "shareArticle" URL?
If you utilize the API for sharing, rather than via URL as you are doing, you can specifically provide values that LinkedIn will use, which avoids the crawler picking up the page's meta-data and "overriding" the URL you are giving it.
More information on making the API call here: https://developer.linkedin.com/docs/share-on-linkedin
Related
Something I cannot find information about in the GA tracking documentation of branch.io is how to attach parameters other than the default GA ones to a link?
For example on top of UTM tracking our company uses custom URL parameters like ?acc=amex in order to provide special access pages on web that triggers certain things. Since in Branch we only have "Channel" "Campaign" and "tags" then I'm wondering would branch pass those custom link parameters and how?
We do pass custom link parameters to Google Analytics and this requires a custom webhook implementation. As this requires more information from your end, I would request you to send an email to integrations#branch.io to take this forward.
I'm working on a web application that uses node.js + express. Our team has decided that all related pages must use a single URL and be distinguished only by its method.
So, for example: we have a group edition page. GET /groups gets the html, which includes the edition form, and POST /groups saves the changes.
The issue is that I only desire to track the POST /groups request. However, on the Google Analytics configurations, I only found URL-related tracking, nothing about specific HTTP methods.
Can this be done?
If you have implemented GA via the standard client-side tracking code then no, GA will not be aware of the http method (JavaScript has no access to http headers). It should however be trivial to render a Javascript if condition into the code depending on the request method.
A lot of the documentation online is pre open graph, and I find the Facebook developers documentation quite confusing (I'm a novice developer). Can someone please tell me, at a high level, how or where I might find out how to go about creating an app in Facebook where I can post to my business' page timeline through a single encoded HTTP GET (or similar) request.
I understand I might have to make a simple FB app and authorize it to talk with a separate web app. But I'm just looking at pointers at this stage.
well it isn't quite correct that you can only find pre-open graph things on Facebook. Anyhow, to post, you need an access token.
What you seek to do is update your fan page via app, if I get it correctly.
That isn't done with just one url: you need to call at least two:
1) one call is to authorize the app and get an access token
2) the second call is to get your accounts (fan pages) with ids and access tokens
3) the third call is to update your fan page via app.
The url to post via app would be https://graph.facebook.com/$your_id/feed with the following parameters: access_token, message (the message you want to post, not required), link (if any. Not required.), image (not required), description (not required), caption (not required), etc. You need at least a message or a link for the post. If you use php the easiest is a curl POST call. I've found something for you here, by the way
Here's the scenario:
I have a mailing list that contains a PDF download link. The PDF contains ads with clickable links. I need to get analytic data on the link clicks - preferably via Google Analytics (due to the richness of information available).
The solution I have in mind is for the link to go to a web page that I host with some sort of ad-specific token. GA records the request and then I use a client-side technique to redirect to the actual target URL. The redirect page serves no purpose other than to track the click and so I'm not worried about it being perceived as cloaking by search engines.
What I want to know is:
Are there any alternative ways to achieve the tracking without using an intermediate redirect page (could I perhaps call GA server-side somehow)?
If I do use the redirect page approach, what are potential pitfalls could I encounter?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
dunno what server-side environment/language you use but for instance in php you can use cURL to send an image request to google, with the custom code appended to the url. Easiest way to do it is to output the code with javascript with your custom code and then capture the image request url with a sniffer, so you can replicate the format for your cURL request. Make sure to send header info, including fake browser info so GA doesn't weed it out as a bot. Then forward to the ad url. That way you don't need to output a page.
Yeah you still have a 'redirect' happening but you cut out having to have the client download a page or worry about javascript being disabled, etc...
unfortunately there really isn't anything better you can do.
What's the best way to track how many times items in your RSS have been accessed?
Assuming your RSS is served from a webserver, the server logs would be the obvious place to gather statistics from. There are numerous packages for parsing and interpreting webserver logs.
AWStats is a popular (free) package, and Wikipedia keeps a fairly comprehensive list.
If you serve your feeds through something like FeedBurner then you can also get stats from there including clicks
You could use Google Analytics, but you would need a service to make the correct requests to the Google Analytics API or redirect to it. There are two APIs you can use:
the __utm.gif "API"
the Measurement Protocol API
To use the later (you need Universal Analytics), which is way better in my opinion, you would need to make a request or redirect to something like:
http://www.google-analytics.com/collect?z=<randomnumber>&t=pageview&dh=<domainname>&cid=<unique-client-uuid>&tid=<propertyid>&v=1dp=<path>
Where:
<randomnumber> is a random number to avoid caches (especially if you do redirects)
<domainname> is the domain name you see in your tracking code
<propertyid> is the property id you see in your tracking code (eg: UA-123456)
<path> is the path to the page you want to register the pageview for. Note that it must be quoted. Eg, for /path/to/page you would need to send %2Fpath%2Fto%2Fpage
I've implemented a simple redirector service that does exactly that here (explained at length here)
If you're stuck with the Classic Analytics then you would need to use nojsstats or the older implementation