Auto-tracked clicks

Outbound links and file downloads, captured without instrumentation.

What gets tracked automatically

The tracking script listens for clicks on the page and decides whether each click is worth recording. Two things are captured without any code changes from you:

Outbound links

Any click on an <a> whose href points to a different hostname than the current page. Only http and https links count. mailto: and tel: links are ignored. Recorded as an "Outbound Link" event with the target origin and path, plus the hostname. The query string and hash are never sent.

Only a leading www. is ignored when comparing hosts. A click from example.com to www.example.com is not flagged. Other subdomains count as different hosts: a click from app.example.com to www.example.com is flagged as outbound.

File downloads

Any click on an http or https link whose path ends in a known file extension. Recorded as a "File Download" event with the origin and path, filename, and extension. The query string and hash are never sent. Detected file types:

.pdf, .zip, .rar, .7z, .tar, .gz, .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx, .csv, .txt, .rtf, .odt, .ods, .odp, .mp3, .mp4, .wav, .avi, .mov, .wmv, .exe, .dmg, .apk, .iso

The two checks run independently. A PDF link to a different domain records both a download and an outbound link.

Where to find the data

• The Pages card on your dashboard has Outbound and Downloads tabs in the view selector.
• Both also appear in the Events page if you want to see them alongside custom events.
• The events API endpoint returns them with type filtering.

Privacy notes

• Auto-tracked clicks are tied to a session and the rotating daily visitor ID, same as pageviews. No persistent identifier.
• Outbound and download events store the origin and path only. Query strings and hashes are never sent.
• Auto-tracking respects the same bot filtering as pageviews. Crawler clicks are not recorded.

Disabling auto-tracking

Auto-tracking is on by default and there is no per-link opt-out from the dashboard. To drop specific links, use the beforeSend hook. It receives (type, payload). Return false to drop the hit, or return the payload to keep it. Auto-tracked clicks arrive as events named Outbound Link or File Download, with the link in payload.properties.url. Set the name of a window function in data-before-send.

Turn auto-tracking on or off

Outbound links, file downloads and rage clicks are separate modules. Outbound links and file downloads are on by default; rage clicks are off until you turn them on. To change one, open Settings, Tracking code, Features. The per-site script only includes the modules that are on, so switching one off makes it smaller.

Use cases