How to track visitor click via PHP?

Hi, I've just been accepted into a search engine's XML feed program with which I can integrate search result into my site. I've overcome all problems and succeeded in displaying XML results on my pages.

Now, here comes the problem of tracking. If I implement a click tracking program which involves another program, how do I pass through the target URL from the search result page to the tracking program? I would like to hide the target URL as well.

Here's my thought...

XML links displayed on browser -> User clicks on PHP tracking link -> PHP program records click and sends the user to the target URL.

Can this be done w/o showing the target URL? The target URL I'm referring to is like two-mile long and I would like the track URL to be as short as possible.

I know this is rather long. If anyone can offer help, that would be great!

hey,

welcome to the devarticles forum!!

could you read in the XML links, then create a form for each one... ie, have it looking something like:

<form action="page_tracker.php" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="xml_link" value="xxxxxx">
<input type="hidden" name="whatever" value="something">
<input type="submit">

you could add the XML link in to a hidden field, then send all the input types as POST data... then the link tracker would get all the posted data, process it, and redirect the user to the value of the xml_link field....

....sound any good?!

fakker,

Certainly an attractive solution... but I will have too many links on the same page, which could be a little weird if each link is accompanied by this extra chunk of HTML form.

I was thinking of saving the URL to the mySQL temporarily, and then the URL redirect program can retrieve it from the database and lead users to the target URL.

Will this work? If so, will this create a lot of 'conflicts' if a lot of users are clicking on the same link?

Thanks!