Track Email actions back to PHP controllers - How To?

Question

Hi! Sometimes on Facebook or from other websites I get emails with URL links that are encoded with specific actions the server is meant to interpret when it receives a call to that link - here's a semi-made-up example:

http://apps.facebook.com/yourApp/tracks.php?sendkey=11bc3efa06&next=reward_link.php%3Fp%255BlahBlahBlah (NOT A REAL LINK - DO NOT FOLLOW!)

My question is this: WHAT IS THIS CALLED? I can't find any info on this technique and I think it's because I lack the right vocabulary for tracking this down (no pun intended) - ARE THERE any good tutorials out there about how to impliment this type of "Action Track Back" system across many users?

THANK YOU! I'm stuck on this, and it seems interesting to investigate!!

Answer 1

This is commonly called a landing page. Its used as a single point of entry to your site from an traceable source (Email, Shared link)

Anything after the ? in a url is a query parameter. In PHP you access that information byt the $_GET super global.

The data you pass into the query parameter can be anything you want. for example you can have http://www.example.com/landing.php?cameFrom=email&referred=John Doe