Outage 5/14/2020

It saddens me to inform you that our service, Linktrack.info, has suffered from a significant technical issue resulting in substantial data loss. We are currently in the process of rolling back our database to the most suitable recovery point available from approximately 20 months ago. I ask that you bear with us while we implement that recovery point.

Our primary short-term goal is to restore tracking links that are no longer pointing to their correct destinations. We are available to help by bulk importing links as needed. Please use the sample .csv document to list your links, and the the destinations that they point to. You can mail this worksheet to mail@linktrack.info

Please be sure to include:

  • The exact username for your account.
  • The full url for your tracking link, including the domain.
  • The full url for the destination.

On a personal note: this 10 year project represents a significant portion of my life’s work, and I’m heartbroken at the loss of confidence that will follow an incident like this. I consider it a personal failure, and to our users, customers, and friends; I apologize.

Thank you,

Keeton

Keeton Harrington
Owner, Linktrack.info

aflw.pw domain siezed

Due to circumstances beyond our control, the aflw.pw domain has been seized by the registrar, Namecheap. This was done without warning or access to a resolution process.

We’ve been doing business with Namecheap for 10 years, so their refusal to communicate or even take a phone call is very much a surprise. At this time, it does not appear that the aflw.pw domain will be reactivated any time soon, and all tracking links associated with that domain have stopped functioning.

If you have aflw.pw tracking links that have stopped working, please contact our customer support to have those links migrated to a new domain.

Thank you.

Spamhaus DBL Blocklist

We’re adding support for the Spamhaus DBL blocklist when creating new tracking links. We’re hoping to reduce the number of complaints for spam and phishing by disallowing those sites with low reputation scores.

You can read more about the Spamhaus DBL blocklist at https://www.spamhaus.org/dbl/, including the removal process for sites listed on the DBL.

99.9% Uptime for 2014

2014 is coming to a close and I’m happy to report that our 3rd party monitoring service shows that we’ve achieved more than 99.9% uptime this year since January 1st! We use Pingdom.com for monitoring and alerts and they’ve done a great job.

How do you determine unique visitors?

Determining unique visitors is not an exact science and everyone has their own formula for doing so. With that in mind, we use the following method:

  1. Cookie tracking: Our server adds a tracking cookie when a visitor clicks on your link. This cookie is timestamped so we can compare their last visit to their current visit. Visitors without a tracking cookie are counted as unique.
  2. Visit intervals: Once a tracking cookie is set, we won’t count repeat visits within a 30 minute window as unique. If a visitor clicks your link one hundred times in rapid succession, we’ll count the first click as unique and the other 99 as non-unique. If a visitor clicks your link once then returns and clicks it the next day, we will count that as two unique visits.

Grow With Us

Technically, we’re not a startup since we’ve been online for several years. Regardless, Linktrack is realizing every startup’s dream: we’re growing. Not only are we growing, but we’re seeing that growth generate new growth and snowball. Personally, I couldn’t be more proud.

If we were a free service, our kind of growth would be a problem. Fortunately for us every dollar we make can go right back into new infrastructure, new features, and better service.

What does this mean for you?

It means the more we grow, the better we’re going to get. If you’ve been with us for a year or more you’ve already seen improvements. If you’re just now coming onboard, please be on the lookout. We’re improving responsiveness, reporting and our core product daily.

Thank you for being part of a very exciting time.

–Keeton

Keeton Harrington
Owner, Linktrack.info

API Sample: Store your link history offline


This week we added another code sample to the API library. This script will pull the link history for the last day and append it to a file on your local server.

If you want to automatically retrieve your history and keep a copy for your own records this is a great place to start. Run it at the same time every day (we recommend a cron job or schedulded job) and retrieve up to 1,000 records at a time.

Get the code sample here.

Download Link History Via the API

credit: jared via flickr
This week we introduced a cool new method to download link data via the Linktrack API. This kind of thing is useful if you want to integrate our site’s tracking data with another web site or application.

The new API method is called “getLinkHistory” and it’s documented on our API documentation page. There you’ll find a code sample or two and everything you need to get started.

We get a lot of requests to white label our service, so this tool is designed with that in mind. The API is available to anyone with an account – just look for it under your “Account” tab.

Cheers,

Keeton

Bug Bounty

We’ve recently rolled out a new version of our Linktrack software, and I thought this was as good a time as any to get some more users participating in our bug bounty program.

Note: This program is intended to last for one month. If this post is more than a month old and you found something, please email us to see if there’s any reward money left.
photo credit flickr:Public Domain Photos
The rules are simple: Find a bug on the site, and we’ll pay you for your efforts according to the fee schedule below.

Bug reports must include a reasonable number of the following to to find and duplicate the problem (explain it to us like we’re five):

  • screenshots
  • links
  • notes
  • browser information
  • steps
  • examples

Payments will be made via PayPal a day or so after you submit your report. We’ll run this program for one month or until our $250 budget runs out.

Bugs are worth the following:

  • Typos: $.50
  • Layout (this looks weird in my browser): $1.00
  • User interface (I’m clicking the button, but it’s not working!): $3.00
  • Broken features (I’m getting an error page): $15.00

Please send your bounty request and supporting documentation via email along with your PayPal email address for payment. We’ll reply to let you know if you’re eligible.

If you have to submit more than one request that’s OK, but please try to group your stuff together whenever possible.

Thank you!

Keeton

Update: bugs reported
The following issues have been reported and are no longer eligible:

  • Typos in the “Follow Linktrack on Twitter” box have been reported.
  • The ‘recent’ link in the footer shows an unfriendly XML page.
  • You have a post titled “Unique Selling Propostion (USP)” – in the title, proposition is spelled incorrectly.
  • on the FAQ page, “yardwork” is not a real word. It should be “yard work”
  • Usability concern, not a bug – On the signup page, please have your terms of service open in a new window or popup
  • Footer needs to be fixed, the year is right next to Danifer Web Services I think there should be a space there and there’s a > floating on the bottom.
  • On http://linktrack.info/p/affiliate the word “affiliate” is spelled incorrectly
  • on http://linktrack.info/p/faq — “ebay” should be “eBay”
  • Unlimited Clicks, Links Won’t Expire, Turn Links On And Off links not working properly (Under “Features”, left side of page
  • Undisclosed security improvements. Includes removal of PHP version reporting.