I upgraded to Matomo version 4.2.1 from 3.14.1 for numerous reasons. One of the reasons was due to the fact that Content Tracking in the latest version was getting rid of the href redirect rewrite that happens when content interactions are being logged. This was noted in multiple places:
- https://github.com/matomo-org/matomo/pull/15406
- SEO issue: Content tracking with no redirection - #11 by Lukas
However, after the upgrade, the code is definitely still behaving the same: all content blocks that track interactions on anchor tags are having their href attribute values replaced with a link to the Matomo tracking server address with a https://MATOMO.DOMAIN/matomo.php?redirecturl=https... URL.
Not only that, but the link is actually broken in version 4. In version 3 the redirect at least worked. In Firefox and Chrome the link does not open, so despite clicking on an anchor tag, nothing happens. Opening the link in a new tab just shows nothing. In Chrome, at least visiting the URL in a new tab leaves a message:
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What’s happening here? For one, the behaviour documented in commits and this forum for version 4 are contrary to the actual behaviour. Secondly, the replaced URLs (which should no longer be a thing) are actually broken.