views:

35

answers:

3

My application has some menu buttons that sends the users to my website.

I want to differentiate in the website how many users came from my app, out of all the regular users.

My app is written in C#, and currently I direct users like this:

string url = "http://mysite/somepage";
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(url);

On the server side, I use Piwik for my web paralytics.

Any suggestions?


Update

One good solution will be to add some parameter to the URL. Yet I was wondering if it's possible to play with the referrer field, for the sake paralytics simplicity.

+2  A: 

Just add a parameter to the URL coming from your app, other users will not have that:

string url = "http://mysite/somepage?fromApp=v1";

On your website, you can pick that up to differentiate users. Do a redirect immediately after, so they will not bookmark the page with this URL.

Oded
that's simple enough... tnx. I thought about adding some fake referrer. is that possible? (will be separated nicer in my piwik)
Am
+3  A: 

Add something to the url, probably in the querystring that identifies that the user has originated from your application, like:

string url = "http://mysite/somepage?source=myApplication";
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(url);

You can/could also use this to track the versions of your app that are in use by adding more to the url, for example ?source=myApplication&version=1.0.3 =)

Rob
that's simple enough... tnx. I thought about adding some fake referrer. is that possible? (will be separated nicer in my piwik)
Am
All you're doing is passing the URL off to the system which will open the browser; you have no control of the Referer header. The URL is simpler and more reliable (e.g. proxies that could potentially alter or remove the referrer).
Christopher
good point. forgot about the proxy problem
Am
+1  A: 

Can't you just add some parameter to the URL your application is using and use that to filter users coming from your app?

Brian Rasmussen
I could. I thought about using referrer, not sure if it's too complicated.
Am