Comments on: Automatic Outbound Link Tracking

By: Gavin Doolan

Gavin Doolan — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:19:01 +0000

Hi Justin,
Thanks for the reply, I’ll check it out. I’m thinking of rewriting such a script to use Event Tracking for Outbound Links. It seems like a better solution than artificially inflating pageviews with virtual pageviews and using _trackPageview method.

Thanks again, will let you know if I get to work on it :).

By: Justin Cutroni

Justin Cutroni — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:11:29 +0000

Gavin,

This feature was announced a while back, like 2007, and it still has not been released. I think they’re having JS issues.

You can try the script in this post about outbound link tracing. It’s a bit out of date, but it can still serve as a good template.

Justin

By: Gavin Doolan

Gavin Doolan — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:24:28 +0000

Hi Justin,
Do you have a script that automatically tracks outbound links? I know this should be possible in Javascript provided you tell it what your domain is, all external links could be tagged using an Event Listener in Javascript.

You could use either track event or track page view methods I guess.

However the title of this article is a little misleading since it says
Automatic Outbound Link Tracking and as far as I know there is no way to automatically set this up in Google Analytics – unless of course I’m wrong ;).

Cheers,
Gavin.

By: Justin Cutroni

Justin Cutroni — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:06:14 +0000

Hi Indchris,

Yes, a click on ANY link can be designated as a goal as long as you are capturing the click on said link. To capture the click you must use urchinTracker() or pageTracker.trackPageview() depending on the tracking code that you’re using on your site.

Check out my series on Tracking Clicks with Google Analytics.

Justin

By: Indchris

Indchris — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:09:37 +0000

Hey Justin,

I have a question. Can an affiliate link on a landing page be designated as a goal (url)? If so, then every time someone clicks on the link (goal), would it show up as a conversion?

Thanks

indchris

By: Justin Cutroni

Justin Cutroni — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:33:06 +0000

Hey Darwin,

This feature is still unavailable to the public so we don’t have anything to share yet. We hope to see it soon.

Justin

By: Darwin

Darwin — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 13:29:05 +0000

Justin,

Would love to see how the outbound linking feature works on GA. Any sense of a potential update with pics on this?

Cheers,
Darwin

By: outgoing link tracking - Google Community

outgoing link tracking - Google Community — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:46:25 +0000

[...] just found out this link [...]

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 23:50:34 +0000

Justin

Right now I am only trying to use events to track where users click on my homepage. But I can already see the possibilities that this will bring. Hopefully they open it up soon! I can’t wait!

Rob

By: Justin Cutroni

Justin Cutroni — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 05:00:38 +0000

Thanks Rob, glad you find the information useful.

While you can start collecting the events, the reporting changes are only available to beta testers. I’m not sure when the reports will be rolled out to the rest of the world. That’s when you should start to see the outbound link tracking.

Congrats on taking the plunge with events! What are you tracking?

Justin