Pay Per Click Tracking - Images

Posted: April 3, 2004

Image tracking occurs by placing a small invisible image throughout your website. When the image is loaded, the visitor is tracked, and can be tracked on your landing page and your conversion page.

The problem with image tracking is that the image is usually invisible, which can cause some search engines to penalize the site’s natural rankings because of the use of something the end user can not see. In most instances, this is not much of a problem as search engines are getting smarter as to how they read code. This should not affect your rankings on the major search engines, this problem generally only occurs on search engines with lower technical standards.

The second problem is that if the user does not have images enabled, the image will not be loaded, and can cause the tracking chain to be broken.

The third problem is the same as the java script problem (above) of not tracking lifetime and returning visitors.

The advantage to image tracking is that less conflicts occur between other tracking systems so if you use both a pay per click tracking system, and a general visitor tracking system, they generally display a greater accuracy than two java script systems.

Tracking Software

There are many tracking software packages available. Some are run on 3rd party machines, and other’s on your own server. Find a tracking software solution that fits you on our Tracking Software Review page.

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