

Twitter now tracking link clicks - merrick33

Maybe it's been going on for a while and I just noticed it.<p>Using twitters web interface I clicked on this link http://bit.ly/olSOg and below are the abbreviated headers that I saw:<p>GET /link_click_count?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FolSOg&#38;linkType=web&#38;tweetId=3540807536&#38;userId=2533331 HTTP/1.1
Host: twitter.com
...<p>HTTP/1.x 302 Moved Temporarily
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:30:15 GMT
Server: hi
Last-Modified: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:30:15 GMT
Status: 302 Found
Location: http://bit.ly/olSOg<p>...<p>GET /olSOg HTTP/1.1<p>Host: bit.ly<p>...<p>HTTP/1.x 301 Moved Permanently<p>Server: nginx/0.7.42<p>Location: http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ff_craigslist_makeover
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blasdel
This is getting ridiculous -- they're double-shortening links! Aren't they a
sibling to bit.ly anyway?

I don't understand why the fuck people don't implement link-click-tracking in
JS on the client-side instead of fucking with URLs.

The tracking that Google now does for logged-in users on SERPs infuriates me
-- it adds a ridiculous amount of latency when you're connected via 3G.

~~~
merrick33
Definitely makes it a double redirect now.

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ZachPruckowski
This seems semi-useless to twitter. I mean, between URL-shorteners and the
fact that this method likely doesn't work with apps that use the API, I'd be
surprised if Twitter's getting any meaningful data out of this.

