Click Log - Part 2

QUEST

To gather unobtrusively click-through data.


STRATEGY: Client-Side

Use javascript to attach handlers for onclick and onsubmit events to all links and forms on a page.

When a link is clicked or a form submitted, an HTTP request of some kind will be initiated. The request just needs to be sent; we won't care about the response, too much...

The HTTP request destination could be on a different domain; so, it is not practical to use "AJAX". There following are possible ways of sending extra HTTP requests from within a page:
- <style> tags
- <script> tags
- <img> tags
- <iframe> tags
- <object> tags
- <embed> tags
- change a CSS background-image

Maybe there are some other ways...


STRATEGY: Server-Side

Create a "page" (probaly a script in perl or PHP) that will return appropriate content based on the way in which the request was created--e.g., a <style> would return CSS, an <img> a 1x1 transparent GIF, etc.