setting cookies based on web url - translating to tracking ids?

**ocanom** · 16-02-05

I wonder if anyone can help with the following:

I want to set a cookie when a user comes to my site based on the url they use to enter my site, e.g. if the come via http://www.mysite.co.uk/?ref=adwords, I want the cookie to be "adwords"

I then want to replace all the tracking-id parts of all the affiliate links, i.e. http://www.awin1.com/tclick.php?id=U...ef=TRACKING-ID with http://www.awin1.com/tclick.php?id=U...ickref=adwords

etc.

How can I achieve this with minimum server load. Is there a javascript way of achieving this, i.e. first setting the cookie based on the url and then replacing the tracking-id parts of the affiliate links.

Thanks.

**dmorison** · 17-02-05

Hi,

This is possible with JavaScript / DHTML....

I want to set a cookie when a user comes to my site based on the url they use to enter my site, e.g. if the come via http://www.mysite.co.uk/?ref=adwords, I want the cookie to be "adwords"

Here's a handy JS function to read GET parameters and make them available to the rest of your script as normal variables:

Code:

function parsequerystring()
{
   var qs=location.search.substring(1);
   var s1=qs.split("&");
   for(var i=0;i &lt; s1.length;i++)
   {
    var s2=s1[i].split("=");
    window[s2[0]]=unescape(s2[1]);
   }
}
parsequerystring();

Having called parsequerystring(), you can then set the cookie based on the value of the "ref" parameter:

Code:

document.cookie = ref;

I then want to replace all the tracking-id parts of all the affiliate links

To start with, I would suggest creating all your links containing a generic tracking ID that basically means "no javascript" - for example, "unknown". You can then change all tracking IDs based on the cookie set using the script above like this:

Code:

&lt;script>
function SetTrackingID()
{
document.body.innerHTML.replace(/unknown/gi,document.cookie);
}
&lt;/script>

Don't forget to call the above function using the onload event of the HTML body:

Code:

&lt;body onload='javascript:SetTrackingID();'&gt;

**ocanom** · 25-02-05

Thanks dmorison - I didn't have a chance to test this out until now, but can't get it to work. Here's what I've done:

PHP Code:


<html>

<head>

<script language="JavaScript">

function parsequerystring()

{

   var qs=location.search.substring(1);

   var s1=qs.split("&");

   for(var i=0;i < s1.length;i++)

   {

    var s2=s1[i].split("=");

    window[s2[0]]=unescape(s2[1]);

   }

}

parsequerystring();

</script>

<script language="JavaScript">

document.cookie = ref;

function SetTrackingID()

{

document.body.innerHTML.replace(/unknown/gi,document.cookie);

}

</script>

</head>

<body onload='java script:SetTrackingID();'>

<a href="http://www.dgm2.com/m/anymerchant/t.asp?A=0000&I=0000&nwk=unknown">A Link</a>

</body>

</html>

Any ideas what I've done wrong? I uploaded this page as test.htm, and called http://www.mydomain.com/test.htm?adwords, but the link dind't change as I expected.

Thanks.

**dmorison** · 25-02-05

Hi,

Sorry - silly oversight on my part.... the result of the replace operation must be reassigned back to document.body.innerHTML...

Code:

document.body.innerHTML = document.body.innerHTML.replace(/unknown/gi,document.cookie);

...should do the trick!

Also, the parsequerystring() function expects name=value pairs; so you will need to use ?ref=adwords instead of just ?adwords

Hope this helps!