BBC External Link Tracking Script

Since my post about the BBC blocking the link juice on external links they seem to have come up with a very clever piece of JavaScript to get around the issue. It’s not on all the external links but it’s on some of them.

Links are still clean and there is nothing in the source code to indicate that they pass through a redirect. However when you click on any external link users are still sent through a tracking script.

This might be a very useful script for some of you who want to track links but still pass SEO benefits, the original is here. For a demo visit this page and click the “Movie Review Query Engine” link.

var LinkTrack = function ()
{
this.docLinks = document.links;
this.location= location.pathname;
}
LinkTrack.prototype.updateHrefs = function ()
{
var currlink, hostname, protocol, linktext;
if (!(!document.getElementsByTagName && document.all))
{
for (var i=0; i {
currlink = this.docLinks[i];
hostname = currlink.hostname ? currlink.hostname.toLowerCase() : "";
protocol = currlink.protocol.toLowerCase();
linktext = currlink.innerText;
if (protocol == 'http:' && (hostname != 'bbc.co.uk' && hostname.indexOf('.bbc.co.uk') == -1))
{
currlink.href = this.getNewUrl(currlink.href);
if (document.all && currlink.innerText.toLowerCase() == currlink.href.toLowerCase()) currlink.innerText = linktext;
}
}
}
}
LinkTrack.prototype.getNewUrl = function (destination)
{
var newUrl = '/go';
newUrl += this.location;
newUrl += (newUrl.substr(newUrl.length-1) == '/')? 'ext/_auto/-/' : '/ext/_auto/-/';
newUrl += destination;
return newUrl;
}
var myC = new LinkTrack();
myC.updateHrefs();

BY Patrick Altoft AT 1:48pm ON Wednesday, 11 February 2009

Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3 and has worked in the SEO industry for over 10 years. With experience across some of the worlds largest brands as well as startup businesses Patrick is well known in the industry and speaks regularly at the major SEO conferences and events. Follow Patrick on Twitter or Google+