Author Archives: Keeton

Why’s your domain name so long?

LinkTrack.info is kind of a long domain name for a link shortening service, but it’s personally important to me to be able to tell what a web site does from it’s domain name. However, I know it’s important to have the shortest links possible so we’ll be registering another shorter domain to use with the service. I’ll post about it here and update the system when it’s done.

I promise that all of our links will be backwards compatible, meaning your link to http://linktrack.info/your_link will also work with http://new.domain/your_link and you’ll be able to use whichever you feel most comfortable with.

Who does this IP Belong to?

A common question from LinkTrackers is: “How can I find out who an IP address belongs to?”

Presumably, the reason for this question is pretty simple – people want to know exactly who clicked their link. Was it Bob in accounting or Sven Patterson in Nova Scotia? Was Sven wearing that new parka I sent him?

Unfortunately, we can’t be that exact – yet. What we can do is called an IP lookup. I like to use http://whois.arin.net/ui for this. In most cases an IP lookup will return the name of the user’s internet service provider like AT&T or Verizon. Although not 100% accurate, you’ll often see contact information for the provider’s office that can help narrow down geographic location.

In a few cases (particularly with businesses) the IP address is dedicated to a particular group and lists their contact information instead of the service provider.

Keep in mind, however, that IP addresses can change on a regular basis for individual users; so don’t rely on them too heavily. This is particularly true for anyone using a dialup internet connection.

That’s it for now. Say hi to Sven for me.

I think I screwed up

Emails from users like you are the best way to improve our service. Here’s one I got today:

Hello,

I think I screwed up somewhat. A couple of weeks ago I set up 2 of your “quick links”. They are xxxxxx and xxxxxx

i didn’t realize that they have an expiry date. Today I actually set up an account under the user name xxxxxx. Should I set up new links or can I transfer the existing links somehow? Will there still be an expiry date? Do I need to go with premium account? Is there a cost?

Thank you,

xxx

My response:

Thanks for the email and for using the service! I’ve re-targeted the links to your new account – please let me know if you have any problems.

Regarding expiration, links created anonymously or using a free account will automatically expire after 30 days. Any premium account (http://linktrack.info/premium_accounts) will be exempt from expiration.

Drop me a line anytime if you have more questions.

Thanks,

Keeton

New Account System. Aw yeah.

If your’e a regular LinkTrack user you probably noticed that we installed a new account system over the weekend. This came mostly from the billion or so requests we received to make our link creation/link tracking system more user friendly and easier to organize. There were also a few requests from the owners that we also do something to cover the expenses we’re racking up.

The solution was simple – we instituted a user account system where you can make links, track them, and keep them organized under an account name. Same as always, but this way the links are tied to an account so you have more control over them and can make changes if you want.

We also added a few ‘premium’ features and gave people the option to upgrade their accounts. Premium features are things like password protection on your links, email alerts, set your links to expire at a certain time or not at all, turn them on and off, download account data, etc.

Lastly, we re-organized some of the data to make things easier to read, added some flashy graphs and tried to improve the look and feel without making it too cumbersome.

The result is something that we’re pretty proud of. We’ve got a nice free system for people to use with some features that aren’t offered anywhere else and our users are already taking advantage of the paid service. I asked a few of them and got a 50/50 mix of those who just want to support the service, and those who want to use the features which I think is awesome.

Please feel free to check out the new site. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please drop us a line anytime.

Image Tracking

Let’s say you want to use LinkTrack to gauge traffic to particular web pages on your web site. Here’s what you do:

Pick an image on your web site like this one: this one
Make a LinkTrack link directly to that image like this: http://linktrack.info/36nq0en
Use the tracking link in your image html like this:<img src="http://linktrack.info/36nq0en">and place it on your web page.

Every time your page is loaded, it will register on your tracking page! It’s no substitute for your server log files, but you can use it to track one specific web page rather than the site as a whole, or use it on sites where you wouldn’t have access to the log files.

If you were to use a smaller image like a transparent .gif or something that’s 1 pixel wide by 1 pixel tall, you would still get the tracking benefit, but the image wouldn’t even be noticeable.

Here’s my tracking picture in action:

See the tracking results at http://linktrack.info/track/36nq0en

Neat, huh?

Split Testing Craigslist

Flickr photo by acloudman I’m seeing a lot of uses for linktrack lately, and one of the most common is tracking Craigslist ads.

If you’ve never been to Craigslist, it’s essentially an online classified ads utility like you would see in a newspaper. The site has generated enough traffic that it’s a very viable place to buy, sell and trade products and services.

It’s so effective that some businesses have taken to posting on a daily basis to attract new business. Linktrack is a great resource for them because it gives them the opportunity to gauge the effectiveness of their ads for either split testing or as a general tracking resource.

Track Affiliate URLs

If you’re involved in an affiliate campaign that provides a special tracking URL so you can collect commissions, then LinkTrack is definitely a good fit for you.

Not only can you disguise your affiliate links (so your users don’t know you’re an affiliate) but you can also independently track your traffic statistics and compare them to your affiliate statistics.

Bulk Email Campaign Tracking

Email campaign tracking is pretty important. If you’re paying top dollar and investing your own time and effort into gathering an email list, writing good sales copy, and ensuring deliverability, then you want to get as much for your effort as possible.

If you’re just linking back to your site using regular URLs, consider using LinkTrack URLs instead. That way you can get an idea of what your readers are most interested in and how they’re reacting to your messages.

Once you know that, you can tailor your campaign better achieve your goals.

Sample Email Signature

I’ve seen people using LinkTrack in their email signatures, and it’s a pretty cool idea. Here’s a sample email signature that I use:

Full name
Company Name
999-999-9999
name@domain.com
http://mycompany.com

Note that if you click the mycompany.com link, it’s actually a LinkTrack link. That way you can get an idea of how many people are interested enough in what you do to check out your web site.

How to Shorten Long Links

The biggest use people have for LinkTrack is as a link shortening service. If you take a long link like:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&
q=124+Grapevine+Hwy,+Hurst,+TX+76054
&sll=37.0625,-5.677068&sspn=49.978077,92.8125&ie=
UTF8&ll=32.871721,-97.16844&spn=0.0065
24,0.01133&z=17&layer=c&cbll=32.870212,-97.168443

You can shorten it so it looks like this:

http://linktrack.info/p00wwqj

As an added bonus, you can track how often that link has been clicked on. Each page gets its own tracking page like this one.

I used this the other day when I was meeting with a client. After I sent him directions, I was able to follow up on the tracking page to see that they had accessed them.