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I'm working on a file that execute a SQL Request when the user goes in it, to know they clicked on the link.
I'm sending it to a lot of people of my company (they are all on Outlook).

However, in my db it's saying they almost all clicked on it (no one did). I believe it's something like a link analyzer from Outlook ?

Do you have an idea to fix it ?
A button to execute the sql request would fix it simply, but i really want it to be when they click on the link in the mail..

I'm working on a file that execute a SQL Request when the user goes in it, to know they clicked on the link.
I'm sending it to a lot of people of my company (they are all on Outlook).

However, in my db it's saying they almost all clicked on it (no one did). I believe it's something like a link analyzer from Outlook ?

Do you have an idea to fix it ?
A button to execute the sql request would fix it simply, but i really want it to be when they click on the link in the mail..

• php
• html
• email
• outlook

Share Improve this question Follow edited Feb 1 at 7:43 hakre 199k5555 gold badges450450 silver badges856856 bronze badges Recognized by PHP Collective asked Jan 31 at 9:30 Benjamin DarmendrailBenjamin Darmendrail 144 bronze badges 2

• Your webserver has no idea really when it receives a HTTP request, whether that request came from a link in an email, or someone typing the URL directly in their browser, or sharing the link with someone else, or if it was done by a bot, or a search engine or anything else. You can get hints sometimes from the nature of the request and sometimes the headers, but nothing that's actual proof. – ADyson Commented Jan 31 at 9:52
• 1 "I believe it's something like a link analyzer from Outlook ?" - probably, yes. Whether you can do something about it, depends on the specifics though. If this just requests the given URL to analyze the (static) page content, but without actually rendering the page like a browser would - then you could probably get away with making the actual request that does the DB update, in the background via JavaScript, on that page the user lands on when clicking this link. – C3roe Commented Jan 31 at 9:58

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A button to execute the sql request would fix it simply, but i really want it to be when they click on the link in the mail..

Put the button in the email, not on the landing page.

Bots (generally) won't make POST requests. So just change your link to a form submit.

First update the landing page on the server so that it only responds to POST requests. At the very start of the script, add something like:

if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] !== 'POST') {
    header('HTTP/1.1 405 Method Not Allowed');
    exit;
}

Then update the email content. Instead of a link that makes a GET request:

<a href="http://my.server/page">click here</a>

Use a button that submits an empty form as a POST request:

<form method="post" action="http://my.server/page">
  <input type="submit" value="click here">
</form>

It's still just one click for the recipient but now preview bots won't touch it.

Do you have an idea to fix it ?

When the user clicks the link, it goes to a page that asks for a 4-6 digit number.

The user then gets another email only containing the number. ONLY. NO HTML, a plain text email (that's what's known as an email) with no links, just the number with instructions.

Microsoft does not fills out forms and executes Javascript in plain text emails (it still follows links though).

Thanks everyone for their solution.

In the end, instead of doing my SQL request when someone goes on the page, I made it when the :hover (css) of a div is trigger. Not the body, but something close to be that big. Body won't work, but the div did.