Is there a simple, universal outbound click tracking method for JQuery / Javascript?

Question

I'm looking for a way of tracking all outbound clicks from a web page using Javascript/ JQuery without modifying any of the existing page code. The solution must work with frames, iframes, content from different domains, AJAX etc.

Perhaps, Javascript is the wrong technology for a universal solution. If so, please let me know what would be better.

I think you'd first have really identify and describe each way to leave the site and think about possibilities to track every way individually. — Felix Kling, Feb 23 '11 at 22:22
Hmmm, that's exactly what I want to avoid doing. I can specify that the user will be using an anchor tag to leave. — jnthnclrk, Feb 23 '11 at 22:28
Would it be possible to record any click within the broswer window? — jnthnclrk, Feb 28 '11 at 15:35

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 21 '12 at 20:41

3

It's easy enough to capture all clicks on external links.

$(document).ready(function() {
    $("a[@href^=http]").each(function(){
        if(this.href.indexOf(location.hostname) == -1) {
            // Handle click here
        }
    });
});

Getting this to work for iframes is a little trickier. The iframe should reside from the same domain due to the Same origin policy. If so you should be able to change the css selector above to something like $("#iframe_id").contents().find("[@href^=http]")

edited Feb 21 '12 at 20:41

Cory House

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answered Feb 23 '11 at 22:12

ChrisR

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Need a solution that works for content originating from different domains. – jnthnclrk Feb 23 '11 at 22:17
Would this work if I used a PHP function like file_get_contents to get all the content onto the same domain? – jnthnclrk Feb 24 '11 at 11:07
You are talking serverside now ... i don't know what you are aiming for but no, the code i posted is pure clientside and can't capture serverside requests. That would require you to capture the requests serverside. – ChrisR Feb 24 '11 at 12:16

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 23 '11 at 22:09

0

There is an easy solution:

get all a elements
    check href to see if it begins with http or https
        if so and the domain is external to your site, add a click handler

answered Feb 23 '11 at 22:09

Finbarr

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With getElementsByTagName() ? – jnthnclrk Feb 23 '11 at 22:13
What if the user is redirected to a different page a la `document.location = http://www.google.com`? What about posting to a form that returns a response or redirects to a new page? – Chris Shouts Feb 23 '11 at 22:19
Adding a click handler to each link is not a good idea. Better is to use *event delegation*. – Felix Kling Feb 23 '11 at 22:20

Is there a simple, universal outbound click tracking method for JQuery / Javascript?

2 Answers2

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