Outgoing links are not plausible

Support & Bugs
1

Hi everyone,

within the “transition” overview, I checked the outgoing links of a specific site. Some of the listed links are not integrated in the reported site. So there can not be an outgoing click since the link actually does not exist on the site. It is not understandable how the list of outgoing links is created.

Maybe someone observed the same issue and has a solution?

Thank you in advance and best regards!

2

Sorry, I don’t understand what you mean “the link actually does not exist on the site”

Please note that in the measurable configuration (in Matomo administration>Measurables>Manage) can define the URLs that are considered as internal…

3

Hi Philippe,

Matomo lists several links as outgoing clicks that are not integrated on the reported site. For example, Matomo reports "The User clicked on the outgoing link “https://www.abc.com”, even though there is no such link on our site. So, the results Matomo shows are not plausible and we do not know, how Matomo tracks these outgoing links.

Does it explain my problem a bit better?
Do you have a solution or idea for this problem? :slight_smile:

Thank you and best!

4

Yes, I understand better…
Do you host advertising or any external content?
Do you allow users to add content in your site?
Do you see some similarities between users (country, browser, IP, time in the day, etc.) who hit such external links?
Do you see some similarities between external links? Are they malicious websites?
Are these external links hosted in the same page, in the point of view of Matomo?

5

Hi Philippe,

thank you for the hints. :slight_smile:

Do you host advertising or any external content? → No, we don´t
Do you allow users to add content in your site? → No, there are only some explicit website editors
Do you see some similarities between users (country, browser, IP, time in the day, etc.) who hit such external links? → I will definitely check that point, thank you!
Do you see some similarities between external links? Are they malicious websites? → No, these are internal links of our website. But we do not have any integration of these link on the reported site.
Are these external links hosted in the same page, in the point of view of Matomo? → Yes

I will check the visitor logs. In case I do not see any anomalies - do you have further ideas, especially regarding my answers to you open questions?

Best regards!

6

I hoped you answered yes to at least one question, it would have maybe contained the solution :wink:

I don’t understand:

is in contradiction with:

7

The problem is:
When i look at “transition” of one specific page (lets say abc.de/information), Matomo should actually list all the information that is directly connected to that page: downloads, clicks, internal searches after visiting that page, etc.
It also shows a list of links, that users klick on being on that specific page (abc.de/information). Even tough, these links are internal connections, it is not possible, that a user comes from abc.de/information to these internal pages when there is no link included. abc.de/information contains maybe one or two links, but not the link that Matomo reports.

Is it a bit clearer? :slight_smile:

8

Probably the user:

  1. Browsed your page
  2. Directly browsed another page of the site (by typing the address, or via a shortcut or…)

I think that in this scenario, Matomo can interpret this as the second page has been accessed from the first one…

9

That might be the case. I guess Matomo does not track it properly.
Thank you for your help! :slight_smile:

10

We experience the same issue: matomo shows e. g.:
http://file///H:/01-Schulleitung/…

Apart from that the link is broken - could it be possible to inject malicious links here?
Is there a way to prevent this?

Thanks, Mike

12

Thanks for your reply!
I will investigate the issues you mention and report.