Saving HTTP Referer

rubyonrails-talk
1

I'm trying to save the site that a user came from when they sign up. Right now I have a before_filter in my ApplicationController:

before_filter :save_referer

  def save_referer     unless is_logged_in?       session['referer'] = request.env["HTTP_REFERER"] unless session['referer']     end   end

def create @user = User.new(params[:user]) if @user.save_with(session[:referer]) .... end

User def save_with(referer) self.referer = referer unless referer == "null" self.save end

Then when a user is created, it checks this session variable and sets it to nil. This is buggy as it only works sometimes and I cannot seem to figure out why. Any ideas what could be going on?

2

Because HTTP_REFERER is *not* a required header, and in fact some security software blocks it for privacy reasons.

So you just can't count on it being available.

3

Aha, is there any way to figure out where a user comes from every time?

4

Short answer: no

Longer and probably not better answer: if by "every time" you mean 100% certainty, no *BUT* you could spend an interesting amount of money approaching, on a very steep curve, that point.

Or so I'd think. But really, for the purposes of this discussion: no :slight_smile:

5

install google analytics.. It has this functionality, and without spending days/weeks/months on this problem, chances are they'll do it better.