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I have shared a link to a question on SO/SE to Facebook.

  • How do I verify that this has generated traffic to the question?
  • Is there any way to verify or track the link to see if any one has visited it through my sharing it?
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2
  • Not sure, but make sure you're using the "link" element at the bottom of the question to obtain the link, which will have your username in the context path, ensuring you get credit for sharing the link! Right click the link element, click "copy address" or whatever the relevant option is in your browser.
    – jmort253
    Commented Mar 21, 2011 at 4:33
  • Thanks ,i get it now.@mort the same link is generated if we click the facebook or twitter icon.
    – Aditya P
    Commented Mar 21, 2011 at 4:57

2 Answers 2

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I think stackoverflow does not provide a user interface to follow these statistics. If there is one, please comment on this question so that I know as well. I will try to provide a workaround-like solution.

You can get the actual referral link from SO/SE using the link button placed under any question (or answer). Then you can use some url shortener service like Google's goo.gl or bit.ly to obtain the actual link to share on your website, blog or social network. This way you can analyze your statistics from the url shortener service and you will still get rewarded by boosting the SO/SE link.

For example this is the link I obtained from your question: How to know what kind of traffic your shared link to SO/SE question has generated?

I shortened it using google's chrome extension: http://goo.gl/56yby

Now I can share the second URL instead of first and I will be able to analyze it from my page on goo.gl.

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9
  • Dont like it. The whole idea of the Stack short link was to track clicks to your specific link adding another shortener seems hacky...
    – Naftali
    Commented Dec 20, 2011 at 15:17
  • In this solution, you still will be sharing your specific link
    – melihcelik
    Commented Dec 20, 2011 at 15:18
  • But shortened twice!
    – Naftali
    Commented Dec 20, 2011 at 15:18
  • 3
    As long as SO does not begin to support this internally, this is a solution that works. Hacky? Yes. A Solution? Yes.
    – melihcelik
    Commented Dec 20, 2011 at 15:20
  • If this is for the purposes of tracking your progress towards the Announcer badges it may not work since there's no guarantee that SE has the same definition of what a view is.
    – Some Helpful Commenter
    Commented Dec 20, 2011 at 15:26
  • Correct me if I'm wrong but URL Shortener Services will just provide you with a link to share publicly. Once someone clicks your shortened link, you will first visit the URL Shortener Service website then you'll be redirected to the original link which is the referral link, as if you clicked the referral link in the first place. Why shouldn't it work?
    – melihcelik
    Commented Dec 20, 2011 at 15:28
  • @melihcelik I can't tell but if your comment was directed at me or not, but just in case you did, Jeff and Joel have repeatedly mentioned on the podcast that they count pages views more conservatively. This leads me to believe that its possible that what they count as a visit, rightly or wrongly, is different than the counts from the shortener service.
    – Some Helpful Commenter
    Commented Dec 20, 2011 at 16:15
  • @ConradFrix Sorry not to tag your name in my last comment and thanks for the answer, it explains the point very well and I get it now. So one can count the number of visitors he directed to stackoverflow but that may not always count towards the badge numbers, which make perfectly sense when you consider unique/multiple visits. I will update my answer with your information, referring to your name, is that OK?
    – melihcelik
    Commented Dec 21, 2011 at 8:17
  • @melihcelik well put and feel free to refer to my comment by my name. And while it was nice of you to ask you did't have to. People usually don't ;)
    – Some Helpful Commenter
    Commented Dec 22, 2011 at 7:41
1

Given that moderators don't get this information it's unlikely that it's going to be made generally available.

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