discuss: Using Webbug to track hits
Subject:
Using Webbug to track hits
From:
Saqib Ali ####@####.####
Date:
19 Apr 2004 19:09:38 -0000
Message-Id: <Pine.GSO.4.55.0404191158100.9339@sjgcs1.stsj.seagate.com>
I think I have mentioned this before. Tracking hits on a distributed
system like LDP is quite easy. All we need to do is web bug all the the
documents. I use this technique for a couple of other projects
Web bug is a technique where you insert a 1x1 pixel image in a document.
Read more here: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Marketing/web_bug.html
The bug is located on single source, and a absolute path is used to
reference the image. for example, we will need to include the following in
a HOWTO:
<a img src="http://www.xml-dev.com/images/pixel-HOWTO-NAME.gif">
So whevever this page is accessed by anyone, the above mentioned image
will be retreived, we just need to count the number of hits on the image.
Easy technique, no mondification/tasks required for individual
mirror sites.
If anyone is interested I can help set this up for LD as well.
In Peace,
Saqib Ali
-------------
http://validate.sf.net <---- (X)HTML / DocBook XML Validator and Transformer
On Mon, 19 Apr 2004, Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:
> At 10:12 4/19/2004, Machtelt Garrels wrote:
> >We have nearly 300 mirror sites. It would take a lot more cooperation
> >than what we expect now from our mirror maintainers to realize a
> >significant measure of visits.
>
> It's not all that complicated, really. All the HOWTO's are in just a few
> directories, so it's not hard to get at the data.
>
> We could set up a short script to grep the webserver logs for those, cut
> the filename out of the log record, and count the uniques. Then run that
> script via cron, have it mail back the results and you're done on the
> remote end. On the local end, since those mail messages will have a
> standard format, one can automate the tabulation of the incoming data.
> Alternately, to avoid the use of mail, the remote script could submit (via
> SCP, FTP, or other means) a simple file with that data. That file can then
> be read at will by the tabulation program.
>
> >that you reached something when publishing into TLDP is a good start, and
> >knowing that hits on your own site are only the tip of a very big iceberg
> >has also always been comforting, to me anyway ;-)
> >The very fact of having my guide in TLDP is enough stimulus to check it
> >regularly.
>
> I understand your point perfectly, and the fact that such an intangible
> motivation is enough for you is laudable. However, not everyone is like
> you, and having additional incentive (in the form of additional perceived
> recognition) may help to provide more motivation for other authors to
> improve and maintain their documents, or it may motivate others to submit
> more stuff that is now hosted externally. Also, it really does provide some
> measure of which documents are more important to users, and therefore help
> LDP's efforts at quality control.
>
> Plenty of ways to skin this cat, *if* we want to skin it. I see some value
> in the idea, but does anyone else?
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> --
> Rodolfo J. Paiz
> ####@####.####
> http://www.simpaticus.com
>
>
> ______________________
> http://lists.tldp.org/
>
>
![src="http://www.xml-dev.com/images/pixel-HOWTO-NAME.gif">](src="http://www.xml-dev.com/images/pixel-HOWTO-NAME.gif">){kind=link}