Knowing When To "Go"
Recently, in response to feedback, we have been putting more external links onto the 主播大秀 site and have also started using tracking for external links on the 主播大秀 News sites.
Essentially the reason for tracking links is to allow us to report to the 主播大秀 Trust how many click-throughs we are generating to external sites so that they can accurately monitor this.
We have had some feedback that the way we are doing this has an unintended side effect ("").
Strategically there is no intention to drink all the Google Juice. The reasons for this are less and I thought it worth explaining.
The system the 主播大秀 uses for tracking external links has been around for years, but we only recently added this tracking to the external links on the Right Hand Side of the . You will find the /go/ tracking system in use across the 主播大秀 website and the way it redirects links is nothing new. You can see the mechanism working if you use a /go/ URL off the 主播大秀 site (e.g. this). (Editor's note 6.44 p.m.: To see the tracking mechanism in action, you need to be on a website that isn't the 主播大秀. We suggest you copy this entire link into a new browser window or tab: /go/bristol/content/features/2003/01/13/ sayingaboutus.shtml/ext/_auto/-/https://www.venue.co.uk/ )
On the 主播大秀 site you don't get this delay, but you can see what it is doing - it is basically logging that you have clicked a link from he 主播大秀 to an external site by going to the intermediary page and then sends you on to this page. Many sites use similar mechanisms and have to deal with the side effects of this.
We are rolling out improvements to the way this works, as already used on some other parts of the website. Essentially we use to retain SEO ("") and for external sites, while we will still be able to track external links. Search Engines, casual observers and those without JavaScript will still see the original URL.
So thanks for your comments but because of the workload around the US election, bear with us while we improve the way this works.
I can't speak for the history of /go/ tracking at the Beeb, but there is some more background in Martin Belam's post for those interested...
John O'Donovan is Chief Architect, 主播大秀 FM&T Journalism
image courtesy of Google
Comment number 1.
At 5th Nov 2008, Chris Lake wrote:Hey John,
Kudos for listening, and for responding quickly and openly.
It would be great to see more in-page links within the 主播大秀's articles, just like there are in this blog post. What's the latest on the trial you started to roll out in August?
text-links.html
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Comment number 2.
At 5th Nov 2008, Andy Mabbett wrote:Re: "Essentially we use JavaScript to retain SEO".
And for people who don't have Javascript enabled/ available..?
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Comment number 3.
At 5th Nov 2008, Keith wrote:#2: The answer is given in the remainder of that paragraph...
"Search Engines, casual observers and those without JavaScript will still see the original URL. "
...basically meaning without JS you will just get the non-tracking URL and be able to access that website. I get the impression the JavaScript (if enabled) will do a 'find and replace' with links to insert the tracking code.
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Comment number 4.
At 5th Nov 2008, pippip99 wrote:of more concern to readers might be the fact "The 主播大秀 Are gifting your online viewing to Omniture"
see the NoDPI https site to comment on this and other privacy related subjects, does the 主播大秀 and the "主播大秀 trust" know about and advocate the UK populus and the 主播大秀 site users world wide data being tracked and sold/given away for free as commoditys to be traded inside and outside the UK ?.
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Comment number 5.
At 5th Nov 2008, BTCustomer wrote:Personally I don't like being tracked around the internet by the 主播大秀 or anyone else especially covertly. I see that some of your tracking domains are now helpfully included for blocking in the MVPS HOSTS file and I have several routinely blocked in my cookie blocking list.
I would have preferred to have found out about the 主播大秀 website tracking from the 主播大秀 in a prominent announcement on the news site but instead I found out about it through the privacy site where we discuss privacy matters including the most sinister bit of tracking to hit the internet - BT's Webwise product discussed here
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Comment number 6.
At 5th Nov 2008, andrew wrote:I don't understand the technical terms here but I do not want the 主播大秀 to design links so they can be exploited by search engine consultants. The 主播大秀 is funded by the license fee, it must not be concerned with the commercial value that SEOs see in its content. SEOs already ruin search results in my view. An obvious example is when Google marks the start of a new season with a doodle. Any classroon clicking on that logo hoping to find out about the season is met with a disappointing list of search engine consultants. My view is the 主播大秀 needs to hold its ground on linking out.
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Comment number 7.
At 5th Nov 2008, Andy Mabbett wrote:"still see the original URL", or see a clickable link, marked up with "A" tags and an "href" property?
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Comment number 8.
At 5th Nov 2008, malcolmcoles wrote:pigsonthewing: If you check EG here:
/health/mens_health/body_shapes.shtml
(random page i looked at).
The links on the right are /go/ links if you have javascript on, and standard ones if you don't.
So google sees standard (a href="/") links, and the linked to receives the link benefit.
As I understand John's post, this is what they're rolling out across the 主播大秀.
If you want some other targets for mainstream companies hording pagerank, try the ones on the list I made at:
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Comment number 9.
At 6th Nov 2008, rhyswynne wrote:andrewmmartin:
I'm in complete agreeance. One of my many feathers to my bow is I carry out SEO work (or, as I like to call it, "web marketing"). There are two ways of carrying out the work in my field.
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Comment number 10.
At 6th Nov 2008, rhyswynne wrote:gah, where has the rest of my comment gone!?!?
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Comment number 11.
At 6th Nov 2008, Frankie Roberto wrote:The new link tracking code is here: /includes/linktrack.js
It's certainly an improvement from a giving-Googlejuice-to-external-websites viewpoint, but still has some accessibility/usability issues (for instance by rewriting the URLs, 'visited' links don't show up, and 'copy link location' doesn't work either).
An improvement would be to have the javascript add an onclick event handler to the external weblinks which calls a tracking URL just before navigating to the target website. Basically, a javascript implementation of the 'ping' attribute, see .
(apologies to all for being technical...)
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Comment number 12.
At 6th Nov 2008, rhyswynne wrote:This is the second part of my comment:-
Far too many SEO'ers focus on writing for search engines, instead of writing for users. Many of the users aren't knowledgeable about keyword density (a myth IMHO), or KEI or other buzzwords SEO'ers seem to conjure up, all they care about is what they have found via Google is what they want.
I'd be interested to see what sort of traffic numbers & increase in RSS Blogstorm gets from this article, as I'm sure from an SEO benefit he doesn't want to be ranked for the word "sinister"
Rhys
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Comment number 13.
At 6th Nov 2008, ArenaFlowers wrote:Great news that it's being addressed. Goods stuff. I still think Google has a problem with the nofollow issue. Glad the 主播大秀 isn't going to be contributing to the growing issue.
Will
ArenaFlowers.com
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Comment number 14.
At 7th Nov 2008, jamespricenet wrote:I鈥檓 editor of the 主播大秀 homepage and in response to pippip99 and others in relation to Omniture, I would venture that it鈥檚 not as sinister as it may seem.
As one of the people actually using the data Omniture captures, I assure you that all I鈥檓 doing is analysing how the homepage is functioning. Specifically, we鈥檙e tracking what users are doing with the customisable bits of it.
It鈥檚 giving us figures like 鈥 say - the percentage of users removing the Sport section, the percentage of users adding the 鈥渢ennis鈥 feed to the Sport section鈥nd so on.
The 主播大秀 is absolutely not singling out individual behaviours here. I鈥檓 using the data in aggregate only.
Hope that helps.
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Comment number 15.
At 9th Nov 2008, loveOla wrote:I'm glad to see that the the googlebots at least will see the proper link, but (not being a SEO-conscious blogger) I don't care that much. It would be far nicer if normal web users got a genuine link rather than a redirect page. What FrankieRoberto says is spot on, both in terms of what is wrong with the current set-up, and the alternatives.
I want external links that behave as any other links - most importantly: to be coloured differently if I have visited them before; such that I can "copy link location"; and that don't leave me hanging for five seconds before taking me somewhere. It might seem churlish to quibble over five seconds, and a few minor points, but the whole thing is ridiculous and unnecessary. Tracking by internal javascript is certainly the way to go, here. Or at very least, remove the 5-second delay from the redirect page. It's so very last century.
Also: James, I don't think the major concern is *your* use of Omniture data - the concern is that *Omniture* is being given huge amounts of user data.
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Comment number 16.
At 12th Nov 2008, jod wrote:Hi all - thanks for the comments.
As frankieroberto poiints out there are at least two ways to approach this, and we are looking at the options and testing them out at the moment. We are trying to find the most appropriate approach for the Journalism sites but within the mechanisms used by the whole 主播大秀, and I will let you know when we are rolling out the update. Will be soon.
The conversation seems to have drifted into user stats.
This is a separate discussion but I should point out that the system we use in Journalism for usage statistics is an internal one called LiveStats.
Amongst many things Livestats drives this page:
and also drives the "most popular stories widget" you see on the right hand side of our news and sport web pages.
The Omniture / Visual Science system is used by 主播大秀 WorldWide but only if you are outside the UK or on the 主播大秀page. Only 主播大秀 staff access the data.
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Comment number 17.
At 9th Sep 2009, felicioo wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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