Appendix: solutions to remove variables from URLs

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Important

You can use the method described below for all types of marketing sources (sponsored links, email marketing campaigns, advertisement, affiliations etc).

If you use the method which was described previously (using the gopc.url method instead of go.url), any click made on the links of your marketing campaigns will lead traffic to your site by adding the xtor variable to the URL. The xtor variable may contain several different parameters.

For example, your link:

http://www.site.com/article.asp?idproduct=4444

may become:

http://www.site.com/article.asp?idproduct=4444&xts=111111&xtor=SEC-300-GOO-[group_1]-[Var_1]-{ifContent:C}{ifSearch:S}-[{keyword}]&xtdt=3425243

If you do not wish to make this variable appear in your final URL, then you will need to go through a redirection page.

Procedure

Create a simple html file which will be called by the clicks on the campaign. For example:

redirect.html

Copy and paste the following code available in this file:

<!--

xtnv = document;

function xtclean(ch)

{ return ch.replace(/%3C/g,'<').replace(/%3E/g,'>').replace(/[<>]/g,'');}

function recupxloc(param)

{

var xturl = xtclean(xtnv.location.search.toLowerCase().replace(/%3d/g,'='));

xtpos = xturl.indexOf(param+"=");

xtpos2 = xturl.indexOf("&xtdt=");

xtlen = (xtpos2>0) ? xtpos2 : xturl.length;

if (xtpos > 0)

{ chq = xturl.substring(1, xtlen);

mq = chq.substring(chq.indexOf(param+"="), chq.length);

return mq.substring(mq.indexOf("=")+1, mq.length).replace(/%26/g,'&').replace(/%23/g,'?');}

else{ return null; }

}

xtsite = "redirect";

xtloc = recupxloc("xtloc");

//-->

</script>

</head>

<body>Redirection en cours</body></html>

Place the xtcore.js file on your server and indicate the URL of its location, this will then be used instead of http://www.mysite.com/xtcore.js.
Replace the banner links which direct traffic to your website with links that direct traffic to this new page. Add the final URL (where you would like users to be redirected) in the xtloc variable, at the end.

*For example:

A link on your ads which redirects traffic to:

http://www.site.com/article.asp?idproduct=44&idart=35

will become (for measuring attribution clicks):

http://logxxxx.xxxx/gopc.url?xts=119&xtor=SEC-300-GOO-[group_1]-[Var_1]-{ifContent:C}{ifSearch:S}-[{keyword}]&url=http://www.site.com/article.asp?idproduct=44&idart=35

If you do not want to have the extra xtor variable in your URL (using the JavaScript redirection method), the link will then become:

http://logxxxx.xxxx/gopc.url?xts=119&xtor=SEC-300-GOO-[group_1]-[Var_1]-{ifContent:C}{ifSearch:S}-[{keyword}]&xtloc=http://www.site.com/article.asp%3Fidproduct=44%26idart=35&url=http://www.site.com/redirect.html

*Key:

http://logxxxx.xxxx/gopc.url?: URL of the server redirection website.

xts=: website ID.

xtor=: campaign ID (xtor chain).

xtloc=: the URL that JavaScript redirection is made to (making it possible to remove the variables in the URL). If it is used, it will be the URL of the landing page that the user will arrive at.

url=: the URL that server redirection is made to (URL that tracking variables will be added to).

*Procedure:

The server redirects traffic to the content of the url variable (in this case, the file redirect.html) linking it with all of all the tracking variables contained before (including the xtloc variable).

The page "redirect.html" stores the total value of the xtor within the cookie and redirects traffic to the URL specified in the xtloc (which retrieves the value of the xtor placed in the cookie). Internet users then arrive on the landing page with a clean URL, which all tracking variables have been removed from.

Important

- The URL variable must contain http:// (or https://).
- This URL variable must be placed in the last position.
- The xtloc variable (if it is used) must be placed just before the url variable
- If the xtloc’s URL already contains its own variables (idproduit and idart), then the ?s must be replaced with %3F and the &s with %26. (HTTP encoding)- The redirect.html file must be on the same domain as the URL which redirection is made to.