How do I get the referrer's domain/host name using JavaScript?

Question

I know I can get the host name of the current page, by simply doing:

var myhostname = location.hostname;

But how do I get the host name of the referrer? I can get the referrer by

var referrer = document.referrer;

but unfortunately there's no document.referrer.hostname available in JavaScript. How can I get this value?

An example of where this is useful is if somebody clicks a link on google.com. I want to be able to retrieve google.com from the referrer (not the page and the query string).

score 58 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 05 '10 at 23:59

58

This would do:

document.referrer.split('/')[2];

Example.

answered Aug 05 '10 at 23:59

Gert Grenander

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splitting on the / did not work for me. i had to split on the comma for some reason. it works, but not sure if this might be because of changes since 2010. – Josh Brown Jun 17 '14 at 16:41
To remove port you can use `document.referrer.split('/')[2].split(':')[0];` – Stephane L Jul 28 '18 at 13:58

score 42 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 05 '13 at 01:00

42

function parseURL(url) {
    var a=document.createElement('a');
    a.href=url;
    return a.hostname;
}

This is a relatively old question, nevertheless this may help any followers.

answered Aug 05 '13 at 01:00

adnan korkmaz

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beautiful use of inbuilt browser capabilities – alexreardon Mar 17 '15 at 23:45
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need to test that url is not empty as it will be treated as relative to the current page (that is in the question if there is no referrer) – ziv Dec 25 '17 at 09:11

score 30 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 13 '16 at 08:22

30

By parsing it. document.referrer.split( '/' ); will get you close. Or take a look at this

http://blog.stevenlevithan.com/archives/parseuri

If referrer is coming from a browser, it will be sane -- but just in case you want more robust parsing.

edited Aug 13 '16 at 08:22

Community

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answered Aug 05 '10 at 23:50

Lou Franco

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If you don't want to re-invent the parsing wheel: with `var a = document.createElement('a')` create an anchor element, then set `a.href = document.referrer` and then simply read out `a.hostname.` Or, even simpler (if you are using NPM), use [ulocation](https://npmjs.com/package/ulocation): `npm install -S ulocation`, `var Location = require('ulocation')` and use `Location(document.referrer).hostname`. *Disclaimer: I am the author of that package* – Stijn de Witt Jan 25 '17 at 21:20

chipit24 · Answer 4 · 2014-10-17T16:33:43.033

16

You can use var referrer = new URL(document.referrer).hostname.

See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/URL.URL.

edited Oct 17 '14 at 16:33

answered Oct 16 '14 at 19:26

chipit24

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Very clean but be aware it's not currently supported in IE https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/URL.URL#Browser_compatibility – Robb Dec 03 '14 at 09:54

score 1 · Answer 5 · edited May 09 '16 at 21:54

1

You can use regexp to extract this data.

string.match(/^http([s]?)://([a-zA-Z0-9-_\.]+)(:[0-9]+)?/);

edited May 09 '16 at 21:54

My Stack Overfloweth

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answered Sep 23 '13 at 21:20

baquiax

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 03 '15 at 12:50

Hi use this function to get domain name.

function getDomain(url) {
    if (url) {
        var match = /(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:\w+:\/)?[^:?#\/\s]*?([^.\s]+\.(?:[a-z]{2,}|co\.uk|org\.uk|ac\.uk|org\.au|com\.au))(?:[:?#\/]|$)/gi
                .exec(url);
        return match ? match[1] : null;
    } else
        return null;
}

score -1 · Answer 7 · answered Jul 18 '16 at 17:36

-1

It includes the protocol, but document.origin will work. It works via the Origin header, which has no path information included with it.

answered Jul 18 '16 at 17:36

elkelk

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How do I get the referrer's domain/host name using JavaScript?

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