I log and rewrite my outgoing links with jquery. I do this for a couple of reason:

1. I want to have valid XHTML, and not add target to my links in the markup.
2. I want Google to index my outbound links correctly and not have mysterious links like /link/out.php?url=http://www.yahoo.com.
3. I want the sites that i link to, to see the correct referrer in their logs.
4. I still want to log what links are popular exits from my page

How do I solve this?

1. Add a class to each external link I want to log.
   
Yahoo!

2. Attach a log and a rewrite behaviour to links with the class added above.

   
   $(document).ready(function(){
     $("a.external-link").each(function(){
        //rewrite: open in new window
        this.target = "_blank";
        //log the click
        this.onclick = function(){
          //lets make some valid use of xmlhttp-capabilities
          $.get("/out.php?url=" + escape(this.href), function(s){});
        }
     });
   }
   );
   
   

3. Create the server-side controller for handling logging.

   
   out.php
   
   
   

That should more or less do it.

1. We still have valid strict xhtml
2. The outbound links are unaltered in a Search Engine Optimization point of view
3. Referring links are correct for those sites that we do link to
4. We are able to log outbound links

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