Get HTTP Referrer on Redirection

Question

How can you get the HTTP Referrer when redirected from another website, not when they click on a link since it would work for $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'], but it doesn't work when a user has been redirected a website and the referrer would be empty.

What will be the method to get the referrer?

Unteach

Answer 1

How can you get the HTTP Referrer when redirected from another website

You can't. If the redirection takes place under your control, you can add the original referer as a parameter, but if the external redirector doesn't do that, you have no way to get hold of the information.

Widespread

Aw. So there is absolutely no way to know where the user came from when the user got redirected? – Unteach

@YouBook not as far as I know, no. – Widespread

Javascript redirects send HTTP Referer header. See here for a more detailed description and use case: https://mcmap.net/q/216770/-will-a-302-redirect-maintain-the-referer-string – Docker

Answer 2

An example of how I did it. Say we have 3 pages, one calling the next.

page1.com -> page2.com -> page3.com.

in page2.com get the page1.com using:

$referrer = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];//=page1.com

when redirecting to page3, send $referrer as a GET parameter

page3.com?referrer=$referrer

in page3 read the $referrer from the get.

$initialReferrer = $_GET['referrer'];//=page1.com

Ressieressler

One could directly call a page3.com?referrer=page4.com so take care about security/allowance issues. Plus, $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] must be rawurlencode`-d before being appended to the URL. – Zionism