referer-parser

Java/Scala:

referer-parser is a database for extracting marketing attribution data (such as search terms) from referer URLs, inspired by the ua-parser project (an equivalent library for user agent parsing).

The referer-parser project also contains multiple libraries for working with the referer-parser database in different languages.

referer-parser is a core component of Snowplow, the open-source web-scale analytics platform powered by Hadoop and Redshift.

Note that we always use the original HTTP misspelling of 'referer' (and thus 'referal') in this project - never 'referrer'.

Database

The latest database is always available on this URL:

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/snowplow-hosted-assets/third-party/referer-parser/referers-latest.yml

The database is updated at most once a month. Each new version of the database is also uploaded with a timestamp:

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/snowplow-hosted-assets/third-party/referer-parser/referers-YYYY-MM.yml

If there is an issue with the database necessitating a re-release within the month, the corresponding files will be overwritten.

Maintainers

• Java/Scala: Snowplow Analytics Ltd
• Ruby: Kelley Reynolds at Inside Systems, Inc
• Python: Don Spaulding
• node.js (JavaScript): Martin Katrenik
• .NET (C#): Sepp Wijnands at iPerform Software
• PHP: Lars Strojny
• Go: Thomas Sileo
• Erlang Silviu Caragea
• referers.yml: Snowplow Analytics

Usage: Java

The Java version of this library uses the updated API, and identifies search, social, webmail, internal and unknown referers:

import com.snowplowanalytics.refererparser.Parser;

...

String refererUrl = "http://www.google.com/search?q=gateway+oracle+cards+denise+linn&hl=en&client=safari";
String pageUrl    = "http://www.psychicbazaar.com/shop"; // Our current URL

Parser refererParser = new Parser();
Referer r = refererParser.parse(refererUrl, pageUrl);

System.out.println(r.medium);     // => "search"
System.out.println(r.source);     // => "Google"
System.out.println(r.term);       // => "gateway oracle cards denise linn"

For more information, please see the Java/Scala README.

Usage: Scala

The Scala version of this library uses the updated API, and identifies search, social, webmail, internal and unknown referers:

val refererUrl = "http://www.google.com/search?q=gateway+oracle+cards+denise+linn&hl=en&client=safari"
val pageUrl    = "http://www.psychicbazaar.com/shop" // Our current URL

import com.snowplowanalytics.refererparser.scala.Parser
for (r <- Parser.parse(refererUrl, pageUrl)) {
  println(r.medium)         // => "search"
  for (s <- r.source) {
    println(s)              // => "Google"
  }
  for (t <- r.term) {
    println(t)              // => "gateway oracle cards denise linn"
  }
}

You can also provide a list of domains which should be considered internal:

val refererUrl = "http://www.subdomain1.snowplowanalytics.com"
val pageUrl = "http://www.snowplowanalytics.com"
val internalDomains = List(
  "www.subdomain1.snowplowanalytics.com", "www.subdomain2.snowplowanalytics.com"
)

import com.snowplowanalytics.refererparser.scala.Parser

for (r <- Parser.parse(refererUrl, pageUrl, internalDomains)) {
  println(r.medium)         // => "internal"
  for (s <- r.source) {
    println(s)              // => null
  }
  for (t <- r.term) {
    println(t)              // => null
  }
}

For more information, please see the Java/Scala README.

Usage: Ruby

The Ruby version of this library uses the updated API:

require 'referer-parser'

parser = RefererParser::Parser.new

parser.parse('http://www.google.com/search?q=gateway+oracle+cards+denise+linn&hl=en&client=safari')
  # => {
    :known=>true,
    :uri=>"http://www.google.com/search?q=gateway+oracle+cards+denise+linn&hl=en&client=safari",
    :source=>"Google",
    :medium=>"search",
    :term=>"gateway oracle cards denise linn"
  }

For more information, please see the Ruby README.

Usage: Python

Create a new instance of a Referer object by passing in the url you want to parse:

from referer_parser import Referer

referer_url = 'http://www.google.com/search?q=gateway+oracle+cards+denise+linn&hl=en&client=safari'

r = Referer(referer_url)

The r variable now holds a Referer instance. The important attributes are:

print(r.known)              # True
print(r.referer)            # 'Google'
print(r.medium)             # 'search'
print(r.search_parameter)   # 'q'
print(r.search_term)        # 'gateway oracle cards denise linn'
print(r.uri)                # ParseResult(scheme='http', netloc='www.google.com', path='/search', params='', query='q=gateway+oracle+cards+denise+linn&hl=en&client=safari', fragment='')

Optionally, pass in the current URL as well, to handle internal referers

from referer_parser import Referer

referer_url = 'http://www.snowplowanalytics.com/about/team'
curr_url = 'http://www.snowplowanalytics.com/account/profile'

r = Referer(referer_url, curr_url)

For more information, please see the Python README.

Usage: node.js

The node.js (JavaScript) version of this library uses a hybrid of the new and old API, and identifies search, social, webmail, internal and unknown referers:

Create a new instance of a Referer object by passing in the url you want to parse:

var Referer = require('referer-parser')

referer_url = 'http://www.google.com/search?q=gateway+oracle+cards+denise+linn&hl=en&client=safari'

var r = new Referer(referer_url)

The r variable now holds a Referer instance.

Optionally, pass in the current URL as well, to handle internal referers

var Referer = require('referer-parser')

var referer_url = 'http://www.snowplowanalytics.com/about/team'
var current_url = 'http://www.snowplowanalytics.com/account/profile'

var r = Referer(referer_url, current_url)

For more information, please see the node.js README.

Usage: .NET

The .NET (C#) version of this library uses the updated API, and identifies search, social, webmail, internal and unknown referers:

using RefererParser;

...

string refererUrl = "http://www.google.com/search?q=gateway+oracle+cards+denise+linn&hl=en&client=safari";
string pageUrl    = "http://www.psychicbazaar.com/shop"; // Our current URL

var referer = Parser.Parse(new Uri(refererUrl), pageUrl);

Console.WriteLine(r.Medium); // => "Search"
Console.WriteLine(r.Source); // => "Google"
Console.WriteLine(r.Term); // => "gateway oracle cards denise linn"

For more information, please see the .NET README.

Usage: PHP

The PHP version of this library uses the updated API, and identifies search, social, webmail, internal and unknown referers:

use Snowplow\RefererParser\Parser;

$parser = new Parser();
$referer = $parser->parse(
    'http://www.google.com/search?q=gateway+oracle+cards+denise+linn&hl=en&client=safari',
    'http://www.psychicbazaar.com/shop'
);

if ($referer->isKnown()) {
    echo $referer->getMedium(); // "Search"
    echo $referer->getSource(); // "Google"
    echo $referer->getSearchTerm();   // "gateway oracle cards denise linn"
}

For more information, please see the PHP README.

Usage: Go

The Go version of this library uses the updated API:

package main

import (
  "log"

  "github.com/snowplow/referer-parser/go"
)

func main() {
  referer_url := "http://www.google.com/search?q=gateway+oracle+cards+denise+linn&hl=en&client=safari"
  r := refererparser.Parse(referer_url)

  log.Printf("Known:%v", r.Known)
  log.Printf("Referer:%v", r.Referer)
  log.Printf("Medium:%v", r.Medium)
  log.Printf("Search parameter:%v", r.SearchParameter)
  log.Printf("Search term:%v", r.SearchTerm)
  log.Printf("Host:%v", r.URI)
}

For more information, please see the Go README

Usage: Erlang

The Erlang port of the library is located here.

refererparser:start().
refererparser:parse(
    <<"http://www.google.com/search?q=gateway+cards&client=safari">>, <<"http://my-web.com">>).
{ok,{referer,search,<<"Google">>, <<"gateway cards">>}}

For more information, please see the Erlang README

referers.yml

referer-parser identifies whether a URL is a known referer or not by checking it against the referers.yml file; the intention is that this YAML file is reusable as-is by every language-specific implementation of referer-parser.

The file is broken out into sections for the different mediums that we support:

• unknown for when we know the source, but not the medium
• email for webmail providers
• social for social media services
• search for search engines

Then within each section, we list each known provider (aka source) by name, and then which domains each provider uses. For search engines, we also list the parameters used in the search engine URL to identify the search term. For example:

Google: # Name of search engine referer
  parameters:
    - 'q' # First parameter used by Google
    - 'p' # Alternative parameter used by Google
  domains:
    - google.co.uk  # One domain used by Google
    - google.com    # Another domain used by Google
    - ...

The number of referers and the domains they use is constantly growing - we need to keep referers.yml up-to-date, and hope that the community will help!

Contributing

We welcome contributions to referer-parser:

1. New search engines and other referers - if you notice a search engine, social network or other site missing from referers.yml, please fork the repo, add the missing entry and submit a pull request
2. Ports of referer-parser to other languages - we welcome ports of referer-parser to new programming languages (e.g. Lua, Go, Haskell, C)
3. Bug fixes, feature requests etc - much appreciated!

Please sign the Snowplow CLA before making pull requests.

Support

General support for referer-parser is handled by the team at Snowplow Analytics Ltd.

You can contact the Snowplow Analytics team through any of the channels listed on their wiki.

Copyright and license

referers.yml is based on Piwik's SearchEngines.php and Socials.php, copyright 2012 Matthieu Aubry and available under the GNU General Public License v3.

The Ruby implementation is copyright 2014 Inside Systems, Inc and is available under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

The Java/Scala port is copyright 2012-2014 Snowplow Analytics Ltd and is available under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

The Python port is copyright 2012-2014 Don Spaulding and is available under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

The node.js (JavaScript) port is copyright 2013-2014 Martin Katrenik and is available under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

The .NET (C#) port is copyright 2013-2014 iPerform Software and is available under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

The PHP port is copyright 2013-2014 Lars Strojny and is available under the MIT License.

The Go port is copyright 2014 Thomas Sileo and is available under the MIT License.

The Erlang port is copyright 2017 Silviu Caragea and is available under the MIT License.