this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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This doesn't even make sense.
If you are on their domain they can see the things you click on, this is how websites and cookies work.
This isn't nefarious, it's the raving delusions of a tech illiterate idiot.
Whatever gets them to see the truth
So why are they hiding it by changing the link with client-side code? Might not be nefarious, but why?
Because that would break the “copy link” functionality.
Most probably so that people don't hover over the link and see that it doesn't match, which might confuse them if they don't know how redirects work.
No.
You can see a link was loaded in the page. Link tracking is still needed to know if the link was clicked.
It can be an "on click" JavaScript event, or a redirect to a tracking site.
No, if you click a link that brings you to or from a site your IP is logged
Navigating the internet requires having and disclosing your IP address.
Sorry
No, clicked links that bring to a site do not log your IP. For that you would have to add some sort of JavaScript to intercept the click and then have some JavaScript execute a HTTP Request that passes that information (eg: HTTP POST). Then the IP can be grabbed via that request by the receiving server. Or more importantly, a tracking cookie.
When clicking a link, the browser may add to Origin header on the HTTP request (HTTP HEAD/GET) that goes to the link's server. Or the link itself can have UTM parameters, but there's no guarantee that ever gets back to the original server.
But the point is if you have a page with 1000 links on it, the server that serves you the page doesn't know which one you clicked without JavaScript or reframing the link to go elsewhere, which is why this post exists.
Put perfectly. Had I not been on mobile....I would have written it just as lazily as I did.
Thanks for taking the time.
The destination logs the IP. The source doesn't see the click, because it happens in your client, not in their site.
Source: managed tens of thousands of sites and hundreds of thousands of servers for over 25 years.
Not true, many frameworks out there for tracking client side interaction, and not only clicks, also keystroke and even just mouse movements on the page….It is called RUM data. It works similar to google analytics.
Your splitting hairs at this point.
My point was without SOMETHING to track clicks, you... Don't.
Sorry it came across like you thought it wasn’t possible when saying source website can’t see the data. With some pretty basic js it is trivial, but yea web server access logs won’t give you that detail… but hardly anyone runs a serious site with only serverside detail now, especially in a world with so much cdn and 3rd party integrations direct from the browser.
Wow so you need an IP to navigate the web and every site you visit sees that IP?
Thanks for explaining what I just explained!
I host a page, you load the page and it has 5 links on it. You can click on any, all or none of the links and my server would have no knowledge of it because after the page has loaded that's our communication finished. All my server can log is that you loaded the page with the links on it and they were sent to you. What you do with that is up to you.
JS or manipulating the links would allow me to track which ones you have clicked.
I'm going to educate you on what this is actually about.
You think it's about tracking someone as they go about the web.
The article is about BLUE SKY tracking the links you click on their site. Two totally different things.
They were correct though, you weren't.
Which makes your cockiness that much funnier.