Content tracking only works for internal links but not external

General questions
1

Hi there,

I have a lot of external links and want to track when they are clicked in a specific element. Therefore we implemented the content tracking.

For content impression it works perfect. Every marked content is counted as impression.

But when in comes to tracking the interaction (click on link) only internal links or random clicks (somewhere in the content) are tracked. External links are never tracked.

Does anyone know what the problem could be?

Thanks in advance
R

1 Like
3

Hi @Ruso,
How did you implement the content impression and interaction trackings?

4

Hi Philippe,

We use the Tag Manager. Our developer added a checkbox in the typo3 backend that must be activated in order to be tracked. The HTML of a marked element then looks like this (I hope I copied the right section)

this is the element on the website:

HTML:

<a href="https://www.handicap-international.de/de/neuigkeiten/kaffeeanbau-ohne-angst-vor-minen" target="_blank" class="ce-link" data-track-content="1" data-content-name="Landminen weltweit" data-content-piece="Kaffee ohne Angst vor Minen" rel="noreferrer">

Thanks in advance
Ru So

5

Hi @Ruso
Do you track thanks to standard JavaScript tracking, or via Matomo Tag Manager?
Do you know if you use the sendbeacon behavior?

case _paq

case MTM

image
image1260Ă—79 3.06 KB

6

Hi Philippe,

thanks for your answer. Sorry for the late reply, I was in holiday :slight_smile:

Our developer says tracking uses the Matomo Tag Manager, sendBeacon is active.

Thx
RuSo

7

Hi @Ruso
I visited your website, but… No tracking at all! (I see the container call, but nothing else)

8

Hi Philippe,

that is interesting.

Our developer says that tracking is activated and should work for external links as well as for internal links.

On the linked site there are only external link that should be tracked: the container with the id c22099. (Image of a Farmer with overlaid box) as well as the container c22216 (links to stories at the bottom of the page).

As written above, internal links are being tracked correctly. Here you can find a container that tracks internal links and works perfectly. https://www.landmine.de/landminen-weltweit/landminen-im-irak/ Container ID: c22322

We don’t find any difference. Do you?

Thanks so much for your help

RuSo

10

Hi @Ruso
Sorry, I don’t see any tracking… ! No page view, no other event. Even if I click on anchors, internal links or external links…
Are you sure the tracking container (7hamZhRU) is well deployed?

EDIT:
I finally understood why I did not see any tracking. Because of the enableDoNotTrack configuration. I suggest you disable this (on your server and in the MTM configuration variable), as only few browsers use this, and on some of them, users (visitors) are even not aware of this browser configuration or cannot change it.

11

Hi Philippe,

we intentionally activated the donottrack configuration, as we think it’s the right of users not to be tracked at all if they don’t want to :slight_smile:

Our developer is in holidays, but he’ll run a test if the configuration maybe blocks all tracking.

But honestly, I don’t think that’s the problem, as internal links are perfectly tracked and the problem only occurs on external links.

Thanks again for your effort
RuSo

12

Hi @Ruso
The DNT is not the problem you encounter, but this is the one I encounter to test your page (I can’t test your tracking as I can’t change my browser behavior on DNT).
I suggest you disable the DNT because:

  • Some browser do not implement it
  • Other don’t allow the user choice of DNT value
  • Most of the time, users don’t know this parameter, then if they would accept the tracking… they can’t (because they don’t know)
  • This is now non-standard and deprecated (see link below)