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javascriptwebanalytics

Webanalytics beacons

I'm wondering why web analytics softwares use a 1x1 gif element to send a beacon, rather than simply including a

<script src='http://my.analytics.com/script.js?my=params'></script>

element to send the beacon and thus avoid having to actually return a 1x1 pixel gif, since an empty response would be a valid javascript file?

Solution

  • One the reasons might be that a .gif will be loaded even by users that don't have javascript activated.