__utm.gif --- how to redirect request?

[Igor Sysoev]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 07:27:39PM -0500, Nick Pearson wrote:

> These requests could be from crawlers.  A couple ways to tell: (1) are
> the requests from just a few IPs, or from lots of different IPs?  And
> (2) do the requests contain all the query string parameters that are
> sent to Google Analytics?
> 
> I run several sites, all of which use Google Analytics, but I've never
> seen this particular request in the logs.  I have seen some others of
> unused assets that crawlers found in various JavaScript or CSS files.
> Some crawlers seem to scrape all referenced files for something that
> looks like a URL and then attempt to access it.  I even get requests
> for "http://tel:/18002345678" from mobile site pages where I have
> links like <a href="tel:18002345678">1-800-234-5678</a>.  The crawler
> doesn't understand, but makes the request anyway.
> 
> I would definitely figure out why this is happening first, but to
> answer your question, this should do what you need:
> 
> location ^~ /__utm.gif {
>     redirect  ^  http://http://www.google-analytics.com$request_uri;
> }

Small correction:

- location ^~ /__utm.gif {
-     redirect  ^  http://http://www.google-analytics.com$request_uri;

+ location = /__utm.gif {
+     redirect  ^  http://www.google-analytics.com$request_uri?;

> You'll want to pass the $request_uri, otherwise the request to Google
> Analytics will be meaningless (because it won't contain any tracking
> data).
> 
> By the way, if the traffic is over SSL, be sure to redirect here
> instead, so as not to cause a security warning in some browsers:
> 
>     redirect  ^  https://ssl.google-analytics.com$request_uri;
> 
> Also note that I haven't tested these, but I don't see why they
> wouldn't work.  However, that being said, I don't know how well
> browsers respect redirects for image requests.
> 
> 
> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 6:27 PM, Ilan Berkner <iberkner at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi All,
> > Simple question, I think.
> > Our error log is flooded with file not found requests for __utm.gif.  This
> > is part of google analytics and for some reason, the requested pages (some)
> > are trying to load it locally.
> > I have yet to figure this problem out in terms of the "why" but for now, I
> > want to remove it from my error log.
> > 2 options:
> > 1. Put a copy of the file in our root directory which will quiet down the
> > error log or
> > 2. Redirect requests to the file via nginx configuration file, something
> > like this:
> > location /__utm.gif {
> >   [ redirect to: http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif]
> > }
> > What would be the correct format for above?
> > Also, has anyone encountered this issue before?
> > Thanks

-- 
Igor Sysoev
http://sysoev.ru/en/