Can you tell me how you use Referrer.pl?

[BSO]

Hi All,
It appears that I am the only person who has no clue as to how you go about using the Referrer.pl.

I know about the bit in the advanced guide and I have searched these posts and also the Knowledge base but cannot find the answers I need.

It appears that there are quite a few things you can do with this script, To start for know I simply want to record and show with my downloaded orders the route the buyer took to my site/catalog. Hopefully this would tell be what search engines are working for me etc.

I have read the bit about changing userdefined3 to 'Referrer' but what I need to know is, what else do you need to do?.

Its probably quite simple and I am thinking on the wrong lines, but the instructions dont seem to tell you what you need to edit/change etc.


Any help would be apreciated

Thanks

Simon

[cdicken]

Could you take a look at the Advanced User Guide and see if that helps you.

Please note though that the referrer script is now called something like 'rs000001.pl' - i.e. the same as the other online scripts (I have corrected this in the very latest Advanced User Guide which will be uploaded on Monday).

Oh, what the hell - here is quick guide:

An extra Perl file (normally called rs000001.pl – depending on your script ID) is available in the installer and is automatically uploaded to your web site. It is a way of tracking which sites customers have come through in order to reach your site. It works by creating a text string as a cookie in the customer's browser if they click on a specific type of hyperlink. If the customer places an order, the text string is then included with the order.

The main uses of this are as follows:

· If you have several links on different websites that point to the same store, you can see how much business comes from each of those links by assigning a different text string to each link.

· If you have several links pointing to your catalogue from different parts of your website, you can see which part of your website is the most popular route for people to go down before arriving at your store by assigning a different text string to each link.

Once an order is downloaded the text string from the cookie appears in a field called sUserDefinedGeneral in the 'Order' table in 'ActinicCatalog.mdb'. By changing the User Definable 3 prompt in 'Design | Text | Web Site (cont) | General Information', to 'Referrer' (but NOT showing it), you can make the text string generated by referrer.pl appear on the Transaction Logs (in the format 'Referrer: <Text String>').

The format of a call to referrer.pl is as follows:

http://www.myserver.com/cgi-bin/rs000001.pl?SOURCE=<text string>&DESTINATION=<catalog HTML page>&PATH=<cgi-bin to catalog path>&BASEURL=<catalog directory URL>

where:

<text string> is the referrer name (the text string that shows that the person has clicked on this hyperlink.)

<catalog HTML page> is the page in your catalogue you want your customers to arrive at (normally index.html)

<cgi-bin to catalog path> is the path from the cgi-bin directory to the catalog directory (as seen in the Network tab in Preferences)

<catalog directory URL> is the URL of the catalog directory (e.g. http://www.myserver.com/acatalog/)

[BSO]

mmmmm

Reading it like that on this site has made a difference, am I right in thinking that you would create the link changing the variables as in your reply, and then put this new link in place of a normal, direct link.

E.G
http://www.myserver.com/cgi-bin/rs000001.pl?SOURCE=<text string>&DESTINATION=<catalog HTML page>&PATH=<cgi-bin to catalog path>&BASEURL=<catalog directory URL> (altered to suit).

Instead of say a link from your homepage to your catalog (something like http://www.myurl.com/acatalog).

If this is the case I take it that the text string will only be created if the viewer has followed one of these specially made links, and it will not work if someone has found your site by clicking on a standard link within a search engine etc.

Thanks for your help, I'm getting there, (slowly)

[BSO]

Yeah, I've been experimenting and I have got it sussed now.
Its lot simplar than I first thought.

Are there any other ways of implimenting this toy?

thanks for your help

Simon

[Jan]

We have some referrer reports at Mole End that you might find useful. See http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/Referrer_reports.html for more details.

[Silvina Rueda]

Can you send an example of a referrer link? When I put my referrer call it downloads the rs000001.pl but does not link to my catalog.

HELP!!!

Thank you.



Sil

[Pneumatus]

Is it possible to use the refferer script to access a page outside of the acatalog directory?