[WEB4LIB] tracking clickthroughs

[Karl M. Bunday]

Bob Long wrote:

> Is anyone tracking the clickthroughs on links that are
> offered from your library's site?

I used to, and that was a very informative exercise in reviewing site
design.

> If so, is there a particular piece of software that you use
> and like?

I used a program called AXS, which used server-side includes to call
scripting to do the tracking. I made a macro to code all my outbound
links appropriately. I'm not sure if AXS is still maintained by its
author, but it worked well enough for me and was so cheap that my site
master provided it for free when I moved my site to its own domain
name.

> In the past I have experimented with Philip Greenspun's
> clickthrough.net service <http://www.greenspun.com/click/>, and it
works
> well enough, but I just wonder if there is anyway to bring this
in-house.

I don't track outbound links anymore, but I found this well worth
doing when I first established my own domain name. The most important
principle of site design I discovered is that users will always go
first to the links "above the fold," so I soon learned to put external
links in places AFTER the content on my pages that answered the most
common user questions. (on the other hand, it appeared that EVERY link
on my site got followed by somebody, even from pages with hundreds of
links. The AXS program also reports which user agents came to visit,
so I know these visits weren't all from spiders.) The single most
popular link on any page seems to be the one that says "links" as the
link text, as readers seem always to be looking for more opportunities
to surf around the world. I stopped tracking outbound links after
learning this and a few other lessons, because I didn't want my site's
server to have the server load of running those scripts all the time.
I got the information I wanted, revised my pages accordingly, and got
out. The last time I looked for the AXS program with a search engine I
found it just fine.

Hope this helps!

Karl M. Bunday  "pray for us" 2 Thessalonians 3:1
P.O. Box 674, Panchiao 220, TAIWAN
http://learninfreedom.org