Plugin breaks link tracking in Google Analytics, Adsense, etc.

  • Resolved Jonas

    (@gnuworld)


    2 years, 5 months ago

    Hi

    Because it uses JS window.open this plugin breaks outbound link tracking in Google Analytics 4 or when very popular plugins like Monster Insights are used for Google Analytics integration and outbound link tracking. I also saw another thread by a user mentioning that their Adsense earnings were negatively impacted through use of this plugin and this I imagine is almost certainly the cause because it will be interfering with adsense click tracking.

    This either needs to be fixed or at least a disclaimer has to be added to the plugin description so that users are informed that this happens. Because right now the plugin is not living up to being SEO friendly because of this.

    For Google Analytics one could in theory add plugin setttings to add onclick=”” event tracking parameters to links, so that they can still be tracked in Google Analytics even if this plugin is used. But for other things like Adsense I don’t know how you would get around this.

    Better to my mind to give the users of this plugin an option to either use window.open or target=”_blank” as the methodology for opening external links and then educate them about the upsides and downsides of each option, i.e. XHTML compliance vs click tracking issues.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Plugin Author WebFactory

    (@webfactory)

    Hi,
    That’s not a 5min fix but I do agree that your approach would be more compatible with everything. I’ll see what we can do ??

    Thread Starter Jonas

    (@gnuworld)

    Great, thank you for your consideration.

    In the case of Google Adsense it looks like they actually do not allow their ads to be opened in new windows regardless of the methodology used, see: https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1354740?hl=en

    So for them it may be best to just add a FAQ to your plugin with a note on this, so that users can be made aware of it and set up their own exclusion.

    But for Google Analytics click tracking and such, some additional functionality would be great.

    Thank you also for your work on this plugin!

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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