Alternative homepage needed to identify where visitors came from

robcubb · March 9th, 2008, 2:33 PM

Hi,

I'm a bit of a technically limited webmaster so bear with me.

I'm doing an interactive PDF that is gonna be sent to 500 people. On this PDF I'll put a hyperlink to my site that says designed by Freelance designer and artworker in London, or something like that.

My site Freelance designer and artworker in London is a WordPress blog.

I would like to know how many people click through to this link and how many pages they look at, what they're interested in, etc. But Google Analytics would record these visitors as direct traffic, I would think, so there'll be no way of differentiating them from my other direct traffic.

I wonder if I create another front page which has the same code as my "index.php" and call it something else, like "fromPDF.php" and link to that then I can track the visitors from the PDF. Unfortunately, http://robcubbon.com/fromPDF.php doesn't work. Here is the code from a WordPress index.php

<?php
/* Short and sweet */
define('WP_USE_THEMES', true);
require('./wp-blog-header.php');
?>

I'll post this question on the WordPress forum. I just wondered if anyone knew a quick work around here.

Sorry to burble on. Cheers!

**puckchaser** · March 9th, 2008, 9:35 PM

Here's a simple half baked idea...

Why dont you create a subdomain like welcome.robcubbon.com and then have that redirect to your main domain.. Then you can check the stats on awstats for the traffic that came through the subdomain.

It wont require additional pages or code, and your endusers wont even notice....

H · March 9th, 2008, 10:36 PM

You might be able to set up a goal/conversion thing in Google Analytics. I seem to remember it being quite nice about how you can track traffic.

robcubb · March 10th, 2008, 3:57 AM

puckchaser, thanks, I was thinking of a subdomain...

Actually I've got a two questions about setting up a subdomain because I tried it the other day through the cPanel and it didn't work the way I expected. Say I set up a subdomain called welcome.robcubbon.com – what happens was it created a directory in public_html and what I created in that folder when viewed in a browser immediately re-directed to robcubbon.com/welcome so I don't know what I was doing wrong.

Anyway, supposing I work out how to do that (which can't be too difficult although I've looked around a bit) how do I do it from there, copy all the html files into the subdomain?

Sorry about the questions.

H, thanks, I'll try to do that, sounds good!

robcubb · March 12th, 2008, 8:15 AM

With help from Jeff at Surpass support I've worked out why subdomains didn't work on my site.

They were not working because of a redirect in the .htaccess in public_html. The particular redirect in question was as follows:

Code:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^robcubbon\.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://robcubbon.com/$1 [R=301,L]

This directs the www to a non-www domain. I read something that said redirecting a www domain name to a non-www domain name, or vice versa, improved SERPs or PageRank.

You can still allow your subdomains to work by excluding them from the redirect. This is done by adding the line

Code:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^subdomain\.robcubbon\.com [NC]

before the RewriteRule. In the above, make sure to replace 'subdomain' with the particular subdomain's name.

So now I know how to make a subdomain whilst keeping my www to non-www redirect.

Still wondering how it is possible to create a duplicate home page in the subdomain...

March 9th, 2008, 2:33 PM	#1 (permalink)
robcubb Registered User Seasoned Poster Joined in Aug 2005 Lives in London 38 posts Gave thanks: 6 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Alternative homepage needed to identify where visitors came from Hi, I'm a bit of a technically limited webmaster so bear with me. I'm doing an interactive PDF that is gonna be sent to 500 people. On this PDF I'll put a hyperlink to my site that says designed by Freelance designer and artworker in London, or something like that. My site Freelance designer and artworker in London is a WordPress blog. I would like to know how many people click through to this link and how many pages they look at, what they're interested in, etc. But Google Analytics would record these visitors as direct traffic, I would think, so there'll be no way of differentiating them from my other direct traffic. I wonder if I create another front page which has the same code as my "index.php" and call it something else, like "fromPDF.php" and link to that then I can track the visitors from the PDF. Unfortunately, http://robcubbon.com/fromPDF.php doesn't work. Here is the code from a WordPress index.php <?php /* Short and sweet / define('WP_USE_THEMES', true); require('./wp-blog-header.php'); ?> I'll post this question on the WordPress forum. I just wondered if anyone knew a quick work around here. Sorry to burble on. Cheers! __________________ Rob* Reseller – Pass 66 www.robcubbon.com www.quitcigs4free.com www.spoilt-angel.com www.mu-sik.com

March 9th, 2008, 9:35 PM	#2 (permalink)
puckchaser He shoots.. He scores! Super #1 Joined in Feb 2007 Lives in A room with no windows. Hosted on SH110 1,361 posts Gave thanks: 40 Thanked 129 times	Here's a simple half baked idea... Why dont you create a subdomain like welcome.robcubbon.com and then have that redirect to your main domain.. Then you can check the stats on awstats for the traffic that came through the subdomain. It wont require additional pages or code, and your endusers wont even notice.... __________________ SH110

March 10th, 2008, 3:57 AM	#4 (permalink)
robcubb Registered User Seasoned Poster Joined in Aug 2005 Lives in London 38 posts Gave thanks: 6 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	puckchaser, thanks, I was thinking of a subdomain... Actually I've got a two questions about setting up a subdomain because I tried it the other day through the cPanel and it didn't work the way I expected. Say I set up a subdomain called welcome.robcubbon.com – what happens was it created a directory in public_html and what I created in that folder when viewed in a browser immediately re-directed to robcubbon.com/welcome so I don't know what I was doing wrong. Anyway, supposing I work out how to do that (which can't be too difficult although I've looked around a bit) how do I do it from there, copy all the html files into the subdomain? Sorry about the questions. H, thanks, I'll try to do that, sounds good! __________________ Rob Reseller – Pass 66 www.robcubbon.com www.quitcigs4free.com www.spoilt-angel.com www.mu-sik.com

March 12th, 2008, 8:15 AM	#5 (permalink)
robcubb Registered User Seasoned Poster Joined in Aug 2005 Lives in London 38 posts Gave thanks: 6 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	With help from Jeff at Surpass support I've worked out why subdomains didn't work on my site. They were not working because of a redirect in the .htaccess in public_html. The particular redirect in question was as follows: Code: RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} . RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^robcubbon\.com RewriteRule (.) http://robcubbon.com/$1 [R=301,L] This directs the www to a non-www domain. I read something that said redirecting a www domain name to a non-www domain name, or vice versa, improved SERPs or PageRank. You can still allow your subdomains to work by excluding them from the redirect. This is done by adding the line Code: RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^subdomain\.robcubbon\.com [NC] before the RewriteRule. In the above, make sure to replace 'subdomain' with the particular subdomain's name. So now I know how to make a subdomain whilst keeping my www to non-www redirect. Still wondering how it is possible to create a duplicate home page in the subdomain... __________________ Rob* Reseller – Pass 66 www.robcubbon.com www.quitcigs4free.com www.spoilt-angel.com www.mu-sik.com

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March 9th, 2008, 10:36 PM	#3 (permalink)
H after g, before i Super #1 Joined in Jul 2004 Hosted on Gojira 7,870 posts Gave thanks: 44 Thanked 127 times	You might be able to set up a goal/conversion thing in Google Analytics. I seem to remember it being quite nice about how you can track traffic.

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