With the release of the new GA.JS tracking code Google Analytics now supports automatic outbound link tracking. No more adding urchinTracking() to links!
In order to get outbound link tracking to work you need to migrate to the new ga.js.
I don’t have any reports to show you, but hope to have some soon.
Hey Justin!
Love the blog. You are my ultimate Google Analytics Source. If we have already implemented the new tracking code – how do we tag outbound links ? Or is this truly “automatic”?
Also, where would this show up in the Analytics reports? I tried implementing some Events tracking code and I’m not seeing anything and guessing that maybe Google just hasn’t activated this part in the reporting section yet?
thanks!
Rob
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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 :).