Login/password for demo TDS: boss:bossadmin
This is an example on how to use variables and transformations. You may need this if you're going to extract,
for example, keywords from SERP referers or use query GET parameters in reports or redirections.
Variables are created automatically from request GET parameters - for example if the hit was to http://demotds.bosstds.com/in/vars/?var1=sometext&var2=anothertext
, two variables will be created: var1 with value sometext
and var2 with value anothertext.
You
may create new variables in manual mode - there's a section Transformations in
OUT Url properties to do this.
There are three types of transformations: GET
param, HTTP header and Constant.
First two ones are actually very similar. They work this way: Take value of query GET param or HTTP header
with given name, apply a filter (written in format Name|filter
) to value, if such filter exists, replace Search pattern (regex) with
Replace, put result into variable Put into
. It may look complicated, but actually everything is very simple.
Third type is the simplest one:
Create a variable with name Put into with value equals to content of
Name.
A few words on filters. Filters are used to simplify and slightly speed up some common operations on variable values. At the moment there are 5 filters:
- {{ varname|URLDECODE2 }} - urldecodes value two times instead of one;
- {{ varname|SE }} - extracts search engine (for example 'Google') from variable 'varname' which contains urlencoded SERP referer;
- {{ varname|SE_FULL }} - extracts full search engine (for example 'google.fr') from variable 'varname' which contains urlencoded SERP referer;
- {{ varname|KEYWORD }} - extracts search keyword from variable 'varname' which contains urlencoded SERP referer;
- {{ varname|DOMAIN }} - extracts domain from variable 'varname' and converts IDN domains from punicode to unicode
We use a scheme named "Variables and transformations". Open this link in another tab. To see all the scheme properties click on 'change' button in the rightmost column.
IN Url of the scheme is vars. Every time anyone navigates to http://demotds.bosstds.com/in/vars/
, he will be sent to one of OUT Urls of the scheme.
A variable will be automatically created from each
request query GET parameter.
if we hit the scheme with just the simple http://demotds.bosstds.com/in/self/
no variables will be created. If we hit it, for example, with http://demotds.bosstds.com/in/vars/?var1=sometext&var2=anothertext
, two variables will be created: var1 with value sometext
and var2 with value anothertext.
Also
we've set a custom report template for this scheme. This will instruct BossTDS to save some data in reports
according to settings of the assigned template(s). This is somewhat slow operation, so use with caution if you
have millions hits a day.
This scheme has just a single OUT. Have a look on its' Transformation section - there are three new variables created:
- First variable: a variable with name data. It will always contain the same value what is.
- Second variable: a variable with name soon. It will contain value of query GET parameter age. A word girl in this value will be replaced (if found) with woman. For example, if the hit was to http://demotds.bosstds.com/in/vars/?age=beautiful%20girl, the variable soon will contain beautiful woman.
- Third variable: a variable with name seng. It will contain name of search engine (for example Google) if query GET parameter from contains ulencoded search engine referer. Otherwise it will be empty.
Now we want to use these variables in the OUT Url. We have http://search.yahoo.com/search?p={{ data }}
the {{ from|KEYWORD }} as our OUT Url. It means that every hit will be redirected to Yahoo search engine
with some of our variables: the variable data will be put as is in place of
{{ data }}, and BossTDS will extract keyword from the from
variable , if from contains urlencoded search engine referer, an put the keyword
in place of {{ from|KEYWORD }}.
For example, a hit to http://demotds.bosstds.com/in/vars/?from=http%3A%2F%2Ffr.search.yahoo.com%2Fyhs%2Fsearch%3Fhspart%3Dper%26hsimp%3Dyhs-per_001%26type%3D_1DD_1DD23DD7DD95DD_1DD_1DD0%26p%3Dbosstds%2520tds
will be redirected to http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=what%20is%20the%20bosstds%20tds.
A couple of words on how to construct an IN Url with search engine referer.
Usually you do this using javascript, such as: <script type="text/javascript"> document.write('<a
href=http://demotds.bosstds.com/in/vars/?from=" + encodeURIComponent(document.referrer) + "
target="_blank">Click me</a>'); </script> Example:
Ok, what about other variables?
We will use them in custom reports. Custom reports allow you to create statistical slices on your traffic. Each pivot of a report contains value of some particular variable.
Have a look on this custom report template. It contains six columns:
- from|SE_FULL - full name of search engine from variable from if from contains SERP referer
- soon - content of variable soon which we created above
- seng - content of variable seng which we created above
- from|KEYWORD - search keyword from variable from if from contains SERP referer
- __BROWSER_TYPE__ - browser type
- ... and the hits count
The report itself could be seen there
Play a bit with these links and see what
happens:
http://demotds.bosstds.com/in/vars/?age=very%20nice%20girl&from=http%3A%2F%2Ffr.search.yahoo.com%2Fyhs%2Fsearch%3Fhspart%3Dper%26hsimp%3Dyhs-per_001%26type%3D_1DD_1DD23DD7DD95DD_1DD_1DD0%26p%3Dbosstds%2520tds
http://demotds.bosstds.com/in/vars/?age=not%20so%20nice%20boy&from=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26frm%3D1%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D8%26sqi%3D2%26ved%3D0CGgQFjAH%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.bostds.com%252Fsomearticle.html%26ei%3D3apWUpnLH4mihgfpi4H4CA%26usg%3DAFQjCNHWcSZg35JGyReQwKZzjcArPch_iw%26bvm%3Dbv.53899372%2Cbs.1%2Cd.Yms
