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I hate to crash the party, but why is the premise that "overriding links is absolutely okay" taken for granted? Says who? Google and their `/url`? Facebook and

by yuvadam 15y ago

I hate to crash the party, but why is the premise that "overriding links is absolutely okay" taken for granted? Says who? Google and their `/url`? Facebook and their `l.php`?

avlesh-singh 15y ago
Tracking helps you build great analytics. I, as a developer, would have otherwise no idea of what's happening in my app.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Do it client-side. Don't break the web.
  - mwhooker 15y ago
    Doing it client side has a couple issues. 1. you need to block the click event until you get a response from your analytics endpoint. Google suggests doing this by adding a 100ms delay: http://support.google.com/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55527 http://support.google.com/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=e... 2. you might get holes in your data for a number of reasons: the user has JS turned off; 100ms isn't long enough for the request to go through; or the user might click off before your script can attach itself to the onclick event. You definitely don't want to get yourself in a situation where you go down and all outbound links stop working, but if you can fail gracefully, replacing the link makes a lot more sense.
    - drivebyacct2 15y ago
      Why does the delay matter? They have to wait for a response regardless of whether it's an AJAX request or a full browser redirect to the record/redirect URL.
    - lazerwalker 15y ago
      Not to mention that your analytics code won't fire if the user opens a link by any means other than a standard left-click (e.g. middle-click, right-click -> open in new window/tab, or keyboard navigation)
larrik 15y ago
Why wouldn't it be okay? This is a link on their own website, they can control it how they want.
- avlesh-singh 15y ago
  That's the point. It is okay as long as they play nice with HTTP headers and other info which needs to be passed downstream.
  - waitwhat 15y ago
    Quora don't "need" to do anything. You just want them to.
zerostar07 15y ago
Indeed, referers are useful information in some cases. For bookmarking apps like http://noteplz.com http://noteplz.com one useful thing is that along with the bookmark, they also store the referer, so you can later go back to the google search result where you found that bookmark. On the other hand, with https and url shorteners,referers are a dying breed. The situation with URL shorteners is absurdly funny now, because twitter double-shortens the shortened urls, since most popular sites have their own shortener.
- mkjones 15y ago
  I don't think url shorteners really hurt referrers at all. They typically use 301 or 302 redirects, which preserve the original referrer.
  - zerostar07 15y ago
    ... however since twitter is under https, all of them end up being "t.co". And even if it wasn't https, a double redirect would lose the referrer
mkjones 15y ago
On sites where there's private information in the URLs + links to external sites, overriding the referrer is necessary in order to protect users' privacy / identity. See https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/protecting-privacy-with-referrers/392382738919 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/protecti... for why we do this at Facebook (I work on that system).
- zerostar07 15y ago
  Quora 's question pages are community-built public pages. If they have private urls in account pages, they should limit referral protection to them. Also, i wonder, doesn't the 200 OK code confuse search bots?

by yuvadam 15y ago

I hate to crash the party, but why is the premise that "overriding links is absolutely okay" taken for granted? Says who? Google and their `/url`? Facebook and their `l.php`?

avlesh-singh 15y ago

Tracking helps you build great analytics. I, as a developer, would have otherwise no idea of what's happening in my app.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Do it client-side. Don't break the web.
- mwhooker 15y ago
  Doing it client side has a couple issues. 1. you need to block the click event until you get a response from your analytics endpoint. Google suggests doing this by adding a 100ms delay: http://support.google.com/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55527 http://support.google.com/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=e... 2. you might get holes in your data for a number of reasons: the user has JS turned off; 100ms isn't long enough for the request to go through; or the user might click off before your script can attach itself to the onclick event. You definitely don't want to get yourself in a situation where you go down and all outbound links stop working, but if you can fail gracefully, replacing the link makes a lot more sense.
  - drivebyacct2 15y ago
    Why does the delay matter? They have to wait for a response regardless of whether it's an AJAX request or a full browser redirect to the record/redirect URL.
  - lazerwalker 15y ago
    Not to mention that your analytics code won't fire if the user opens a link by any means other than a standard left-click (e.g. middle-click, right-click -> open in new window/tab, or keyboard navigation)

larrik 15y ago

Why wouldn't it be okay? This is a link on their own website, they can control it how they want.

avlesh-singh 15y ago
That's the point. It is okay as long as they play nice with HTTP headers and other info which needs to be passed downstream.
- waitwhat 15y ago
  Quora don't "need" to do anything. You just want them to.

zerostar07 15y ago

Indeed, referers are useful information in some cases. For bookmarking apps like http://noteplz.com http://noteplz.com one useful thing is that along with the bookmark, they also store the referer, so you can later go back to the google search result where you found that bookmark. On the other hand, with https and url shorteners,referers are a dying breed. The situation with URL shorteners is absurdly funny now, because twitter double-shortens the shortened urls, since most popular sites have their own shortener.

mkjones 15y ago
I don't think url shorteners really hurt referrers at all. They typically use 301 or 302 redirects, which preserve the original referrer.
- zerostar07 15y ago
  ... however since twitter is under https, all of them end up being "t.co". And even if it wasn't https, a double redirect would lose the referrer

mkjones 15y ago

On sites where there's private information in the URLs + links to external sites, overriding the referrer is necessary in order to protect users' privacy / identity. See https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/protecting-privacy-with-referrers/392382738919 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/protecti... for why we do this at Facebook (I work on that system).

zerostar07 15y ago
Quora 's question pages are community-built public pages. If they have private urls in account pages, they should limit referral protection to them. Also, i wonder, doesn't the 200 OK code confuse search bots?