I have a web page which contains a link list with internal links
within the web page, i.e.
<a href="#a1">section 1</a><br>
<a href="#a2">section 2</a>, etc.

I want a short report sent by HTTP to the server when the user
clicks on one of these page-internal links. This should not be
visible to the user, but would enable us to know which links
our users use.

Can this be done in some way, for example with some kind
of short Javascript code connected to the link? Can someone
who knows Javascript well provide such a code for us?

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Request for Question Clarification by rhansenne-ga on 13 May 2003 04:49 PDT

Hi,

Could you specify what the structure/format of such a report should be
and what it should contain?

Thanks.

---

Clarification of Question by jpalme-ga on 19 May 2003 17:11 PDT

Yes, we are satisfied with your answers. The first solution, changing
<a href="#a1">to <a href="http://site.net/page#" did not work, because
the information sent to the server did not include which section the
user had chosen. But the other (webbug) solution works.

the absolutely SIMPLEST way would be to add the page url too, e.g.
change
<a href="#a1">section 1</a><br> 
<a href="#a2">section 2</a>, etc. 
to
<a href="thispage.html#a1">section 1</a><br> 
<a href="thispage.html#a2">section 2</a>, etc. 

since the actual link will show in the http server log, ready to be
chewed on by any of the many log file analyzers out there, such as you
will find here
://www.google.com/search?q=log+files+analyzer

the second method which could be used in the head of the page, f.ex.
using an external js file is this:

<script>
function addInfo() {
   document.images.saveInfo.src='testimage.gif?'+this.href
}
function initPage() {
  for (i=0;i<document.links.length;i++) 
    if (document.links[i].href.indexOf('#')!=-1) {
      document.links[i].onclick=addInfo;
    }
  }
}
window.onload=initPage;

Michel

PS: this assumes a gif image somewhere (called a web bug)

<img src="blank.gif" width="1" height="1" name="saveInfo">

and will ALSO show in the http log files as
testimage.gif?urlClickedByUser

This image can ALSO be created by script by using inline script (e.g
at load time NOT after) and
document.write('<img src="blank.gif" width="1" height="1"
name="saveInfo">')

Lastly
document.images.saveInfo.src
can be written
document.images['saveInfo'].src
which I actually prefer :)

Michel

Your suggestions sound very good, we will try them out and see
how they work. Thank you!

Just a slight modification to mplungjan-ga's answer:
<a href="?#a1">section 1</a><br />
<a href="?#a2">section 2</a>

That way it's independent of the filename.

What do you mean by not dependant of the filename?
The filename is needed unless the section names are unique for all pages...

PS: If you are (almost) happy with the comments let me know what you
need in order for me to post them as answer. My comments were
initially just meant to get you started since I had little time to
follow them up.

Michel