> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew Bowden > Sent: 29 April 2008 09:13 > To: [email protected] > Subject: RE: [backstage] "b00b3zjr" > > In some circumstances, yes HTTP_REFERER is fine. > > However query strings are arguably a useful method in some > circumstances > - feeds being a prime one. Reading a feed in Bloglines for > example wouldn't give you a good way of tracking. > > So then that leads to the question of do you want two ways of > tracking where people came from, which is technology > dependent, or one way? > Which fits in better with workflows, stats reporting etc etc.
Yes indeed, and to be open and clear on the purpose of this - the value in the query string is appended to the item page URI depending the logical page area in which it appears - Featured, Most Popular, etc - so we can do clickthrough measurement of how traffic arrives at item pages and how the site design is performing in relation to the content - which can inform future iterations/tweaks of the UI to make it better. Plain old HTTP_REFERER (which we certainly do also have for general user journey reporting) can't give us this granularity. It's a bit of a hack, certainly, but not the worst one we could have come up with. :) Paul (BBC) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
