__utm.gif --- how to redirect request?

[Igor Sysoev]

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 01:16:02PM +0800, Joshua Zhu wrote:

> Hi Igor,
> 
> Typo? I guess it should be 'rewrite' instead of 'redirect'. :D

Yes, of course. The complete configuartion is:

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

> 2009/9/11 Igor Sysoev <is at rambler-co.ru>:
> > 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/
> >
> >
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> -- 
> Joshua Zhu
> http://www.zhuzhaoyuan.com

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