So we're doing some tracking and I've setup some links to be tracked via bit.ly. I've also created some QR codes.
So, we scanned the codes using QR Reader, the #1 QR scanning app on the app store, and none of the hits were coming in through bitly. So we decided maybe it had to do with the fact that I made bit.ly links and then made QR codes from those, rather than using bit.ly's built in QR code creator (which we just found). Tried with the new codes, still nothing on bit.ly's site.
I downloaded a different scanner (QR Scanner) and it records everything as normal.
Does anyone have insight into this, done this before, know of a work around? I can't force my users to not use a particular QR scanner.
I mean, unless I'm crazy, when I hit a bit.ly link, their server goes and looks up what the URL is based on the code and redirects me. How the F! can that process happen without bit.ly recording the event?
bit.ly is not a reliable way to get usage statistics for a URL.
For best results, you should use the facilities provided by the web server itself.
Since you don't control bit.ly you can't control how they count hits.
I believe the QR Scanner program is performing a HEAD request instead of a GET request to validate the URL scanned. Since a HEAD will return re-direct information and is not (and should not be) counted in "hit" statistics you wouldn't see the hit on the bit.ly statistics.
While frustrating for your goals, this is one of the features that make QR Scanner better than other programs, you don't want to do a full GET when a HEAD will work.
Merely scanning a QR code containing a URL does not necessarily do anything to the URL. A simple app would do nothing at all. It would show the bit.ly URL to the user and wait for the user to confirm that he/she wants to access the URL. Then of course the browser would access the URL.
Some apps like Barcode Scanner on Android will access known URL redirectors to show the user what's behind the redirect before proceeding. It will issue a HEAD request after just scanning the QR code.
I would not expect any app to issue a GET just on scanning. It's unnecessary to read the redirect. And if the app is sending the user straight to the URL after scanning, that's a bit of a security risk.
A couple of things to check would be GET/HEAD and the User-Agent. If the QR reader is sending a strange, or no, user-agent header, it might get accidentally considered a bot click.
If you generate a bitly link - http://bitly.com/test - and then turn it into a QR code using a 3rd party service, you won't see any stats about whether scans have come from a QR code.
If you use the bitly QR generator - http://bitly.com/test.qr - you will get a QR code with a different url in it.
In this case
http://bitly.com/test?r=qr
It is that r=qr part which is recording whether the click came from the QR code.
So, to clarify, you share the link "http://bitly.com/test" on Twitter / Facebook / etc. You share "http://bitly.com/test?r=qr" via QR code. That way you can track where hits are coming from.
Related
I was able to pass a simple URL (thousands) 6 days ago to the vision client and obtain an output. However,right now, it is not possible. What changed? I don't like the idea of a simple workaround by downloading the data and then placing that as input.
What happened Google? Why did this changed? Should we move to Azure, AWS?
Anybody got the URL working without the workaround
If you are using http URLs as input, it is possible that the Google crawling bot fails to fetch the URL you provided at that specific moment.
There are many reasons for this, for example:
The site of your URL is down, or it temporarily blocked Google bot, or it updated robot.txt to stop the Google bot to crawl URLs.
You can retry after a while, or you can download those URLs by yourself.
I guess if you try again today, it may recover to work.
Why don't you try to use base64 encoded string instead of image URL.
I had the same experience to get a response from Google OCR API. It failed two or three times out of ten API calls. It really got me stressed because I got no clue.
Since I've changed my code to base64 accidentally, It worked well. 100% response. Never fail!!
Good luck!
We have a website that contains encrypted user information in the URL. For example:
www.mysite.com/default.aspx?xs=ew0KICA
Our client reported Bing.com is coming up with that full URL (including the encrypted user information) and is allowing data to be viewed without logging in. How can I prevent Bing (or any search engine) from returning the URL with the user information?
Also, please note that I did not design this site so I'd ask you to avoid comments such as "you shouldn't pass user information that way." It's not how I would have done it, but I need to fix it with minimal time allocated to me to do so. I just need some help figuring out why Bing did this and how to stop it. Thanks!
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
I want to make a site that uses QR codes, and for user analytics I want to see how many people access it through the code, but I don't want a GET parameter for this because I don't want any URL guessing giving me incorrect stuff. Any way to detect QR code access?
No.
Besides something in the URL, you only really have the headers. For example, if you assume all mobile traffic to the URL is from a QR code reader, you could sniff for a mobile User-Agent header. Doesn't seem very robust, tho.
Not really, but you can use a URL shortener such as bit.ly to collect analytics.
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.