It appears that sometime today, Twitter added new functionality that adds a “click event” to add links clicked on the site. So if you click a link to CN, click a friend’s profile or click a link over to one of the third party apps, Twitter is tracking it.

Darren Stuart first found this functionality earlier and noted that Twitter isn’t modifying the actual URLs but instead adding a javascript event which runs the “http://twitter.com/link_click_count?url=’urlhere’” function.

It does not look like third party apps (HootSuite, Tweetdeck, Sobees, etc.) are affected by this link tracking change. Frankly tracking links without tracking the third party apps seems silly as apparently the hardcore Twitter users use some application with the service.

We can guess that the URLs are being tracked for internal stats, for some sort of hot URL board, for metrics to use with advertisers, etc. There’s also been talk about Twitter creating some sort of engine so perhaps this is the first step.

Leave your thoughts on the reasoning behind tracking every link in the comments below.

Update: it appears the tracking links are gone as of now.

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Doing proper analysis of your web app or blog is critical to its success. It is vital that you monitor the who, what, when, where and why visitors are coming to your web site. If you expect to get VC money or to be able to sell advertising, you must prove the traffic your site receives. I love analytics and have reviewed somewhere close to 200 tools over the years. I have come up with what I consider to be five of the top analytics tools that are either free or very low cost. These tools will help you answer the 5 w’s of your web site. List is in no specific order and all of the tools I am suggesting just require a few lines of javascript code in your footer include to get them working. Less than 10 minutes setup.

ExtremeTracking

Product Link | Product Demo

Price: $54/yr or $6.25/month full version, free version also available – must show stats icon

Pros:

• Excellent IP tools – find out exactly where your visitors are coming from down to the individual company or location
• You can drill down to a specific page and get all of the stats just for that individual page
• Tracks connection speed, OS, browser, java/javascript, screen colors and resolutions
• CSV downloads
• Ability to exclude IPs from reporting (good for excluding yourself, team, etc.)

Cons:

• Poor history – only offers full access for last 300 visitors, then is grouped by day, week, etc.
• Not the prettiest thing in the world
• Free version allows anyone to view your stats

Screenshots – click to enlarge

Mint

Product Link | Product Demo

Price: $30 one-time

Pros:

• Very Web 2.0, excellent design and usability
• Lots of “Pepper” – plugins
• a forum for help and the creator actually helps with installation and usage questions
• RSS Feeds

Cons:

• History is limited beyond 24 hours back
• No ability to customize time period for reports
• No export option outside of RSS
• Only can exclude one IP address

Screenshots – click to enlarge

Google Analytics

Product Link | Product Tour

Price: Free

Pros:

• Tied in with Google AdWords and Google Checkout
• Free and no icon required
• Provides good basic stats
• Good export options – text, csv, xml

Cons:

• Not the most indepth tool
• Works the best when you use AdWords and/or Checkout
• Can’t exclude IPs

Screenshots – click to enlarge

HitBox

Product Link | Product Demo

Price: $323/yr, $34.95/month

Pros:

• Full featured web analytics tool
• Ability to receive reports via e-mail
• Provides good basic stats
• Good export options – text, csv, xml

Cons:

• Higher cost
• Reports limited to 100 web pages
• Reports are huge and take some time to generate

Screenshots – click to enlarge

SiteMeter

Product Link | Product Demo

Price: Free, must display stats icon

Pros:

• Real-time stats
• Ability to receive reports via e-mail
• Provides good basic stats
• Pretty cool traffic predictor

Cons:

• Must display a SiteMeter icon on your site
• Heavy advertising on report display
• Not the prettiest design

Screenshots – click to enlarge

Summary

I use Mint, Google Analytics and ExtremeTracking on CenterNetworks. I think together they provide the most comprehensive coverage for my needs. Each tool has its own pros and cons so you can decide what you need/want for your web site/blog. I would suggest at a minimum you use Google Analytics because it is free. And get it working today. Each day you wait, is another day of no ability to speak to your traffic. Even if you never look at a report, do it anyway. When you get your funding, sell the site, or get your first advertiser, you can thank me :).

Find more stories about: analytics, Clicky, Google Analytics, Insights, Mint, reporting, tracking