This question has probably been asked and answered elsewhere, but it came via email from one of our users earlier today:

Hi Linktrack.info,

I was browsing your site before and I’m a little confused about what you do. What is a URL tracking tool and how would I use it?

Of course, in my mind the answer is simple, but that’s because I work with URL tracking day in and day out as one of the programmers on the site. Like anything else when you work closely with something for a long time, you feel like every nuance is somehow common knowledge!

Thanks to this user for bringing me back down to earth. In a nutshell, here’s how a url tracking tool works (at least with this site):

1. 

   Create a tracking link which goes to your destination url

2. Distribute that tracking link in whatever way is convenient for you. Put it in emails, on other web sites, etc.
3. Every time someone follows that link, we record all the information available from that action and give it to you in a readable format.

That’s it. There are a a lot of different ways people use our tracking links – browse through some of our previous articles to see a few.

When we first sat down to design LinkTrack, it was going to be one more in a growing list of simple URL shortening sites that kept a database of redirect links and their destinations. We were going to simply access our database for incoming requests and use a 301 redirect in the header to forward the user to their final destination.

While we were kicking the idea around, we realized that since the visitors were passing through our site anyway, there was absolutely no reason not to record and make available all of the data typically collected by a web server during a site visit. Things like the date and time of the visit, their IP address, and their referrer (where they came from).

With that in mind, we built LinkTrack as a url shortener with tracking as an added benefit.

If you’re using a url shortening service that doesn’t include tracking, you’re really missing out on some of the best parts or url redirection. Try out our site for free when you get a chance – you don’t even have to create an account – and see what we mean.

Here’s a way to use the LinkTrack service with all of its tracking features with your own domain name at no extra cost!

So, you love LinkTrack, and you think it’s awesome that you can make links and track them whenever you want, right?

But what if you’re not a fan of the linktrack.info domain name and you don’t like sticking urls like http://linktrack.info/some_link all over the place?

You could go with a whitelabel, custom built, custom branded URL tracking service built under your own domain name, but that’s either going to cost a lot of time or money to setup.

Here’s how to do it on the cheap under your own domain name:

You’ll need a registered domain, hosted wherever you like and a server that uses url re-writing via an .htaccess file. With a little modification you can probably use your existing web site, but you’ll want to be a little careful with how you setup pattern matching in the .htaccess file.

Once you’ve got that going, use the following code to redirect incoming tracking links to the LinkTrack site:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  Options +FollowSymlinks
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteBase /
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteRule ^(.*+)/(.*+)$ http://linktrack.info/$1/$2 [R=301,NC,L]
  RewriteRule ^(.*+)$ http://linktrack.info/$1 [R=301,NC,L]
</IfModule>

Update 3/9/10: I made some changes to the .htaccess code above to accommodate premium account holders using vanity links containing special characters and links with Plus+ tracking enabled.

Then, it’s just a matter of creating a tracking link and appending the redirect hash to your own domain!

For example:

1. Go to LinkTrack.info and make a tracking link like http://linktrack.info/my_tracking_link
2. Take the ‘my_tracking_link’ part off the end and append it to your domain name so it looks like http://mydomain.com/my_tracking_link
3. If you’ve setup the .htaccess file correctly, users clicking on http://mydomain.com/my_tracking_link will be redirected seamlessly to the link’s final destination, and LinkTrack will record all of the tracking data in your account!

There it is! Custom branded url tracking at no extra cost. Your mileage may vary depending on your server setup, but if you’ve worked with .htaccess files before you can probably get this up and running without too much trouble.

It’s always fun when you find another cool use for your own service!

Today, I started using tracking images on my 404 pages to count how many page not found requests the site was getting.

These tracking images tell me which requests are getting 404/page not found responses and where they’re coming from without having to dig through my referrer logs!

This way, I know whether I’m serving too many 404 pages, and what I need to do to fix them.

Have a feature request? Add your suggestions below, or let us know if you like someone else’s idea. We’ll pick the most popular and get to work!

Got a nice quote from one of the users on our service today:

I really enjoy the linktrack program. I promote the best identity theft service in america and business opportunity that goes with it! I mostly post my linktrack on craigslist and its really nice knowing which city and which category works the best.

Thanks!
Jeff Baron
http://linktrack.info/gpg25ihz

Here’s another one:

I just found out that signing up is AWESOME! all links I create are now in one place and destination editing is GREAT!

–Raymond P.

If you need a 1px by 1px transparent tracking image that you can use for image tracking, you can use this one:

http://linktrack.info/images/tracking_image.gif

At LinkTrack, people generally want two kinds of data from our system.  They either want to know how many clicks their link got, and they want to know how many times the page was loaded.

The industry terms for these are clicks and impressions, and they’re two different animals.  That said, you can easily achieve either with LinkTrack.

Click Tracking

A click happens anytime someone sees your link in an email or on a web page, and uses their mouse to click and follow it to wherever it goes.  If you want to know how many times that’s happening, just copy and paste your tracking link anywhere you would put a regular link and we’ll count the number of clicks it gets and give you details about each one.

People use click tracking for:

• Pay-per-click advertising campaigns like Google AdWords.
• Bulk email campaigns to see which links the recipients are following.
• Twitter links to see which links get the most attention.

Impression Tracking

An impression happens whenever a web page element (like an image) is loaded.  Impressions are counted every time a page is loaded, regardless of whether the user clicks links or takes any other action on the page.  If you’re after impression tracking, check out our article on image tracking.  Essentially, it’s just a matter of pointing your tracking link to a small image, and then adding that image to your web page.  Our system will keep track of every time the image is loaded and report the details to you.

People use impression tracking to:

• Tell which pages of their web sites are getting the most visitors.
• Figure out whether the messages from their bulk email campaigns are being read.
• Gauge traffic on web site where they don’t have access to the traffic statistics.

Below I’ve written an advanced tutorial on how to collect conversion data using a LinkTrack link rather than the Adwords conversion tool.  The difference is that instead of having Google collect the data and filter out the conversions for you, we reverse the process so that we’re collecting the tracking data and filtering it ourselves.  This gives you a lot more control and flexibility for your reporting.  This tutorial assumes that you have created a LinkTrack tracking link that targets a web page designed to take orders, collect email addresses, etc. that also collects IP address and date/time information when people buy/signup/etc.

What is Google Adwords conversion tracking?

If you’re a fan of Google Adwords (like I am) you might have already discovered the conversion tool that you can use with your Adwords campaigns.  In a nutshell, the conversion tool tells you not only how many clicks your ad received, but also how many of those clicks resulted in the action you were trying to achieve – product purchase, information request, newsletter signup, etc.  This type of data is very valuable when determining the worth of an advertising campaign.  It’s great to generate a lot of traffic with an advertising campaign, but if that traffic is not converting into customers then you’re wasting money.

Why should I track my own conversions?

While I like the conversion tracking system in Adwords, I’ve always been a little leery about using it, and I have a couple of reasons:

1.       It’s JavaScript dependent.  JavaScript is my least favorite programming language because the code is interpreted by the user, meaning they can turn it off to ignore whatever you’re trying to achieve, or worse, alter it do something you didn’t intend.

2.       As an extension of #1, I also don’t like that I have to add a block of JavaScript code to each and every page I want to track conversions on and keep them updated as I change my business changes.

3.       Each Adwords link is allowed only one conversion tracking script.  What if you have more than one ‘success’ metric?  For example, what if a visitor comes to your site and signs up for the newsletter without purchasing a product?  With Adwords conversion tracking, you can only measure one or the other even though I would view either as a successful conversion.

4.       My gut feeling is that Google factors in the success rate of a particular ad into what they charge me.  They could very easily look at my conversion data and say, “This ad is bringing you lots of customers – we think you’re going to need to pay a premium for that.”

5.       To take that a little further, I have an overall concern with the amount of data Google is collecting about my business.  I’ll rant about this in another post sometime.

6.       Lastly, wouldn’t it be cool if you could track conversions through other PPC and advertising programs besides Google – and do it all from one place?

How do I do it with LinkTrack?

For my example, I’m using my LinkTrack tracking link as the destination for one of my Adwords ads so it will keep a separate record of individual clicks on each ad.  Since the LinkTrack web site records the IP address and timestamp whenever someone creates a new account, and I have that information available in a separate .csv file that I can open in Microsoft Excel.

Now all I have to do is download report data from my LinkTrack account (either for the specific link in question or my entire account at once) and compare it with the data from my own collection system.  I typically use IP addresses for comparison purposes and occasionally filter that with date/time stamps to get the most accurate results.  A little fancy Excel work will automate that process for you.  Here’s a copy of the Excel formula I use to compare two columns of data:

=IF(COUNTIF('LinkTrackData'!A:A,A1), "Conversion!","")

The best part about using LinkTrack to measure conversion data is that it you can use it on multiple marketing platforms!  It works equally well with Google Adwords, Yahoo! YPN, email advertising, banner advertising, etc.  and can tell you exactly where you’re traffic is coming from as well as which specific links to your site are generating the most revenue.

While this method is not for the faint of heart, it’s added a valuable metrics component to marketing system.  I’m also really proud that I’m able to use the utility I built in the course of my every day business.  I think that really says something about the quality of the product.

Lots of users are using the ‘password protection’ feature that comes with the premium accounts, so I thought I’d elaborate on what it does here and find out if anyone has any questions about how it works.

Usually, when you create a LinkTrack link and someone clicks it they get taken directly to the final destination you choose when you created the link.  With password protection, they’ll need to provide a password in order to reach that destination.

I’ve seen this used:

• On publicly linked special offers where the link owner doesn’t want the general public to have total access.
• With email marketing campaigns to more accurately gauge interest levels.
• And when the link owner really wants to distinguish human visitors from automated ones (bots won’t enter passwords).

If you want to see how it works, the link below will take you to Bill Gates’ Facebook page.

The link: http://linktrack.info/gates_facebook

The password is: bill