Making use of HTTP_REFERER

HTTP_REFERER

A variable passed by the web browser to the destination server giving the name and location of the document it just came from.

Search Engines

Google:wlug+GoogleTrick

There is a proprietary apache module (mod_suru) which extends the idea further, highlighting the search terms without needing to resort to google's cache. It purports to work with any search engine. See it in action with Google:experts-exchange+http_referer.

This would be a very neat addition to twiki and from the sound of it, a low hanging fruit.

-- MattWilkie - 24 Apr 2003

Re: "This is very cool: Google:wlug+GoogleTrick and follow the second link. Then go back and look at the first link."

I guess I'm not very observant — what should I be seeing?

-- RandyKramer - 25 Apr 2003

Sometimes I think everybody else's thought patterns should follow the same tracks mine do... What am I excited about? Just that WLUG wiki looks at the referer to determine why this user arrived here, and makes an attempt to respond directly to that. Why is this cool? Imagine this:

A person arrives at twiki.org, having searched for Google:wiki+version+control+perl+attachments. The topic that google serves up is TWikiPublicity20011201, but we (meaning the twiki code) because of our intimate knowledge know that other topics (e.g. FileAttachment [0]) are likely to be more relevant and can direct them accordingly.

• [0] I would have added a topic which introduces twiki's version control, but I can't find one!

At the moment though I would be happy with a twiki implementation of mod_suru.

-- MattWilkie - 25 Apr 2003

Ok, now I see (guess I saw it before, somehow I thought it was a Google thing (like when you view a page in the Google cache).

Yes, it could be an interesting feature.

-- RandyKramer - 26 Apr 2003

Also see AutomaticLinkBack.

-- MattWilkie - 24 Dec 2004