dannytalk ™ A Danny Ng Blog

I’ve just updated my code on tracking exit links in Google Analytics to skip applying the code if the href of an anchor tag is ‘#’. This is usually the case when the anchor tag is there to execute javascript or to scroll to the top of the page, thus does not contain any exit liks.

This can be found on line 29 with the addition of a condition in the condition statement, anchors[i].href != (document.location + ‘#’).

I’ve seen a few other scripts that tracks exit links but some of them I don’t think are very good as they lack error checking and also some of them overwrite the existing onclick attribute which I guess could break the site’s functionality.

Also to prove to you that my script is working, I’ve included a screenshot of the report found in google analytics.

Of course you can click through to the individual links and analyse the dimensions for further analysis. I will be working on more google analytics custom scripts to help bring and enhance more meaningful reports.

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I just wrote a simple helper function that gets the cumulative offset of the x and y position (or the cumulative top and left) of an element. This function is helpful if you want to position things around a certain element.

Although I haven’t tested it extensively yet, I think it works fine so far. If there’s any bugs, please let me know.

To use it, simply call getCumulativeOffset(element).x or getCumulativeOffset(element).y. There’s also a simple helper method to get the offsetTop and offsetLeft properties by calling getOffset(element).x and getOffset(element).y.

I’m working on a feature that allows these methods to be prototypes of HTML elements so that you can call it by element.getCumulativeOffset().x instead which is more elegant and object oriented.

/**
 *  @author:    Danny Ng (http://www.dannytalk.com)
 *  @date:      21/09/08
 *  @notes:     Free to use and distribute for non-commercial use without altering this notice. Would appreciate a link back.
 */
function getCumulativeOffset(el)
{
	var x = 0;
	var y = 0;
	var cur = (el) ? el : this;
	do
	{
		if (cur.nodeName.toLowerCase != 'td')
		{
			x += cur.offsetLeft;
			y += cur.offsetTop;
		}
	}
	while ((cur = cur.offsetParent) && cur.nodeName.toLowerCase() != 'body');	

	return { x: x, y: y };
}

function getOffset(el) { return (el) ? { x: el.offsetLeft, y: el.offsetTop } : { x: this.offsetLeft, y: this.offsetTop }; }

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I’ve had this domain for less than 3 months now and I’ve been testing how fast I can get in the 1st page of Google and Yahoo’s search engine results page (SERP) for the term “danny ng”.

As of today, my blog is ranked #7 on Google AU and #5 on Google US. On Yahoo AU and Yahoo US, I’m ranked #1. Not bad ay?

Next step is trying to get my PageRank up. It remains 0 at the moment. I should blog more but I’ve been a lazy bum hehe.

There’s a lot of things I want to do with javascript, but haven’t found time yet juggling a job, a girlfriend, a social life and so on.

I will probably write a post on where do you draw the line between search engine optimisation (seo) and usability in the future. Frustrates me when deciding whether to neglect usability for the sake of seo.

Google US

Yahoo US

Google AU

Yahoo AU

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Yes, that’s the name of my sister’s optometry ball at university. Me and a bunch of guys from church are going to be playing music there tomorrow night. Songs included are Stars by Switchfoot, Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson, Shiver by Maroon5 and so on.

Hopefully I’ll have pictures to post up hopefully by Sunday night.

Pretty hectic weekend though as tomorrow will be pretty much taken up by practice, setting up, playing and packing up. Might head to the gym if I do wake up early enough (it is 2.45am now :S). Then on Sunday I’ll be playing for church which means I got to wake up at 7am.

Then it starts all over again on Monday. Work work…

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So yeah, I haven’t been doing much blogging recently. Been busy meeting up with people, gyming and practicing to play at my sister’s university ball.

On top of that, I might start doing some Joomla web development for some clients and even look into doing some e-commerce for myself. Also I want to work on more javascript widgets that will be cool to use.

I’ve added a contact page for people who wish to contact me. I’m using cforms plugin which seems to be pretty advanced in functionality, but also a bit hard to use. Takes a bit of reading.

So many things to do, so little time.

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