Adding an option inviting your audience to “Add this page to their favourites” has obvious benefits. It’s purely one of those convenience things that can improve the uptake of your site, and the easier you make it for them the better.
So how to do it? Well, it takes some javascript, but to ensure that it works across all browsers, is a few lines longer than you may be expecting. The post here from Digital Inspiration has a full example that (with a few tweaks) will work on all browsers.
The crux of it is:
- For IE use - window.external.AddFavorite(location.href, document.title);
- For Firefox use – window.sidebar.addPanel(location.href, document.title,”");
So what’s the added benefit of this? With a little extra programming, you can now monitor and log how many people have added your site to their browser bookmarks, something you couldn’t do otherwise. Now that’s a great way to know what’s hot and what’s not, especially on content based sites!
Good post,
I have set up a few of these links, I am looking to quantify the benefits.
You say you can monitor usage, any details on how to?
By: Benjamin on February 4, 2009
at 2:23 pm
Hi Ben,
Because the bookmarks are created through javascript, you have the opportunity to make an AJAX call to the server with some logging details. There are some frameworks which make this easy enough, such as JQuery and Prototype. If your using ASP.NET AJAX, then there is always the option to make a call to a Web Service (strictly speaking a Script Service in this context) from the client side using javascript. Take a look at Using Web Services in ASP.NET AJAX for more information.
Let me know if you need a further example. I can always create a new post on the subject.
By: matthewtester on February 4, 2009
at 10:10 pm