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rp08orbust
07-21-2011, 11:57 AM
So I've created the domain ronpauliowa.com at Name.com to forward directly to http://www.iowaforronpaul.com/register.php so that I have a short URL to read in my robopoll message that sends people directly to the ticket purchasing form. Is there any way I can monitor the number of URL forwards?

PastaRocket848
07-21-2011, 12:20 PM
I'm sure Google Analytics could probably tell you what you need to know? Not certain but that would be my first stop.

harikaried
07-21-2011, 12:24 PM
Can you change the destination of ronpauliowa.com at any time? How often do you need to monitor the usage? You could probably leverage bit.ly or other url shorteners where you would direct ronpauliowa.com to something like bit.ly/abcdef which then redirects to iowaforronpaul.com/register.php. You should then be able to check out bit.ly/abcdef+ (note the plus) to check stats.

unconsious767
07-21-2011, 12:36 PM
Can you make a duplicate page of http://www.iowaforronpaul.com/register.php, it might be called
http://www.iowaforronpaul.com/registerX.php

It has the same links and all, but there is an invisible counter on that page to measure those who come in from ronpauliowa.com

JamesButabi
07-21-2011, 01:02 PM
I'm sure Google Analytics could probably tell you what you need to know? Not certain but that would be my first stop.

He would need to have analytics or some other script installed on the iowaforronpaul.com site. Then they could easily track that information for you. Without going through the hosted site Im not exactly positive short of double forwarding as harik suggests.

Bern
07-21-2011, 01:15 PM
Assuming that you have a web server with an .htaccess effecting the forwarding (ie. you aren't setting the DNS records to point directly to the target site), you should be able to track traffic in your server logs.

rp08orbust
07-21-2011, 01:23 PM
Assuming that you have a web server with an .htaccess effecting the forwarding (ie. you aren't setting the DNS records to point directly to the target site), you should be able to track traffic in your server logs.

No web server--the forwarding is done at the DNS level. The bit.ly solution sounds pretty simple--I'll give that a try.