Google Answers: loading a javascript tracking code in a php redirection script

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Q: loading a javascript tracking code in a php redirection script ( No Answer, 2 Comments )

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Subject: loading a javascript tracking code in a php redirection script
Category: Computers > Programming
Asked by: bba11-ga
List Price: $11.00

Posted: 20 Aug 2003 14:21 PDT
Expires: 19 Sep 2003 14:21 PDT
Question ID: 247032

Hi there, 

thanks for reading. I have the following problem. I switched from my
old shopping cart using perl to oscommerce. My pay per clicks links still
come in on the following link and then are redirected by a small php
file. Sounds confusing look here:

they come in at www.server.com/cgi/smart.cgi?listitems=whatsoever
whatsoever can be 170 different things and more. And they are all
looked up in the database and then are redirected by the following php 
code to there new php address in my oscommerce shopping cart.
Until now there is no problem. Everything gets redirected just fine.

Thats the redirect script:

<?php require_once('./Connections/mydatabase.php'); 
$string=$_SERVER[QUERY_STRING]; 

$string="http://www.server.com/cgi/smart.cgi?".$string; 
mysql_select_db($database_server, $mydatabase); 
$query_redirectLinks = "SELECT id, oldLink, newLink FROM oldLinks
where oldLink='$string'";
$result=mysql_query($query_redirectLinks); 
while($row=mysql_fetch_array($result)) 
{ 
$new=$row[newLink]; 
} 
header("Location: $new" ); 
?> 

Now I integrated a javascript based tracking script to all my php pages
which gives me information on how the customer came to my site and
what search term they used. But since the javascript can only be
loaded in the body of a html it is not showing me the referrers when they
come through the old link and get redirected.

The only referer that is picked up now is my own site. Because the
javascript can only be loaded in the page the customer is redirected
to. i.e.
in this case someting like www.server.com/default.php?cPath=121

listitems=whatsoever is now cPath=121

Please help me!! How can I integrate the javascript tracking code into
that redirection page to pick up the original referrer and still
redirect the page.

Thanks

Axel

Request for Question Clarification by webadept-ga on 08 Sep 2003 01:14 PDT

Hi Axel, 

Seems you have an answer to this, which is great. I would like to
suggest that now that the "crisis" is over and you have a working
solution, you now look into switching over to using PHP Sessions,
which will keep such problems from happening in the future, and will
eliminate the possibility of Javascript tampering.

webadept-ga

Answer

There is no answer at this time.

Comments

Subject: Re: loading a javascript tracking code in a php redirection script
From: darealhamsta-ga on 23 Aug 2003 08:52 PDT

Hi Axel,

I'm guessing the JavaScript tracking code is sourced from another
site, in this way:

<script language="javasript"
src="http://other.site/javascript.js"></script>

If this isn't the case, please correct me. Assuming it is though, the
simplest way to fix this is to use a META RERESH instead of an
automatic PHP redirect. So instead of the PHP code you currently use,
you would replace it with something like this:

<?php

require_once('./Connections/mydatabase.php');

$string = $_SERVER[QUERY_STRING];
 
$string="http://www.server.com/cgi/smart.cgi?" . $string;

mysql_select_db($database_server, $mydatabase);

$query_redirectLinks = "SELECT id, oldLink, newLink FROM oldLinks
where oldLink='$string'";

$result = mysql_query($query_redirectLinks);

while($row=mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
	$new=$row[newLink];
}

echo <<<END
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Redirecting...</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2;URL=$new">
</head>
<body>
<h1>Redirecting...</h1>
<p>If you are not redirected to our store in five seconds, please <a
href="$new">click
 here</a>.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
</body>
</html>

END;

?>

I've set the redirect on this page to two seconds, but if you find
that pages aren't being logged properly you may need to set this
higher in the META REFRESH tag, see the number in the CONTENT
attribute before the URL. Obviously you can change the HTML in the <<<
HERE printed statement to anything you want, but you should keep it as
simple as possible to allow the JavaScript time to download.

If you find this cumbersome there is an alternative way of doing this
without requiring the obvious REFRESH, however it would require
prepending a PHP file to the oscommerce code.

Hope this helps,
adam

Subject: Re: loading a javascript tracking code in a php redirection script
From: bba11-ga on 25 Aug 2003 12:10 PDT

Hi Adam,

you are right about the javascript and you helped me a lot!
You will get the full credit for this!

I implemented your code and it worked. 
On last thing.
Since they come in on that ..../smart.cgi I had to put the following
code there too in order for the javascript to pick up the referer
properly. So now I have actually to redirects. The first from the
original link

http://www.server/cgi/smart.cgi?listitems=whatsoever  --->to (1sec.)
http://www.server/cgi/redirectLink.php?listitems=whatsoever ----> to
(1sec.)
http://www.server/default.php?cPath=whatsoever_new (regular new page)

Is there a way you know how that cgi code has to be changed in order
to get rid of the php file in between. I only know how to connect to
the mysql database with php. So I have to redirect from the cgi to php
to pick up the new link and then redirect from php to the new link.
I am sure that you can connect and find the new link with the cgi, too

cgi code-------
#!/usr/local/bin/perl

print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "<HTML>\n";
print "<HEAD>\n";
print "<TITLE>Online Store</TITLE>\n";
print "<META HTTP-EQUIV=Refresh CONTENT=\"1;
URL=/redirectLink.php\?".$ENV{QUERY_STRING}."\"></HEAD>\n";
print "<BODY>\n";
print "<script language=\"javascript\">\n";
print "var DOCUMENTGROUP=\'Old Shoppingcart Pages\'\;\n";
print "var DOCUMENTNAME=\'CGI\'\;\n";
print "</script>\n";
print "<script language=\"javascript\"
src=\"http://www.server.com/includes/tracking.js\"></script>\n";
print "<noscript><img
src=\"http://www.trackingcompany.com/nopic.pl?a=XXX&js=no\"
width=\"1\" height=\"1\"></noscript>\n";
print "</BODY>\n";
print "</HTML>\n";

CGI Code eof------------------------

PHP Code to connect to the database-------
<?php 
 
require_once('./Connections/mydatabase.php'); 
 
$string = $_SERVER[QUERY_STRING]; 
  
$string="http://www.server.com/cgi/smart.cgi?" . $string; 
 
mysql_select_db($database_server, $mydatabase); 
 
$query_redirectLinks = "SELECT id, oldLink, newLink FROM oldLinks
where oldLink='$string'";
 
$result = mysql_query($query_redirectLinks); 
 
while($row=mysql_fetch_array($result)) { 
 $new=$row[newLink]; 
} 
?>

PHP Code eof-----------------------------

Do you know how? That would be so great! If not tell me and I will
credit you the money anyway for the great work you did so far!

Thanks,
Axel

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