Making our stories free to read and republish is an important reflection of THE CITY’s commitment to supporting a healthy news ecosystem. Including our pixel tag enables us to continue doing that by ensuring we can measure the results, and share them with those who financially support our work.
Why use a tracking pixel?
One way we measure our impact and growth is through page views. We can see views to our own site, but don’t know how often our stories are being seen elsewhere across the web. The tracking pixel allows us to capture that data.
What data are you tracking?
We collect only the title and URL of the page the pixel is loaded on. We do not set or read cookies on your site or use any other data to identify users individually.
How does it work?
The tag loads a script that captures the URL and title of the page and requests a 1×1 pixel transparent gif. The URL and page title are included in the gif request, which allows us to log the view. The code uses Google Analytics to collect data but it does not track user-specific data. It does not set or read any cookies on your site.
The software we use was originally developed by the Institute for Nonprofit News and is now maintained by Newspack. THE CITY and its development partner rtCamp contributed code to the project.
You can review the code on Github.
What do I need to do?
Just include the tag that is automatically included in our HTML republishing code, found by clicking the “Republish” button on the story page.
How does this affect page load?
The pixel should not materially affect the speed with which your pages load. The tag won’t block the browser from parsing the page.
I still have questions.
Questions? Feel free to reach out to us with any questions at data@thecity.nyc.