Facebook Trackers - Track Facebook Profile visits

Almost from it's inception, the official Facebook developers have been adamant that user profile trackers will not be made available, so that users will never be able to see who has visited their profile or Facebook Photo album. This stance, which sets it apart from MySpace, whose users can use several different types of profile trackers, ensures that Facebook users can surf anonymously across the site, without worrying about divulging their surfing habits to the owners of the pages that they visit. By not allowing users to update their profiles with HTML or javascript code (the way that a profile tracker would normally be added), Facebook has essentially shut down all avenues for users to easily track who visits their profiles. This also eliminates the use of existing MySpace Profile trackers, as this is how they are normally implemented into a users profile on MySpace.

Current Facebook Trackers

At the present time, there is only ONE Facebook application which currently offers any sort of profile tracking ability: Trakzor. Trakzor is a a free facebook application that you can add to your profile, by selecting it from the "Browse more Applications" button when in your profile application edit mode.

Based on early user's feedback, this Facebook application does not work that well, although this may not be a fault of the application itself. Trakzor only recognizes the user profiles of other Facebook users who have also signed up for a Trakzor account... and if you haven't done so (which, at this time, is most people!) then you will not be picked up by this profile tracker, and those Facebook users can continue to surf anonymously. So, while the reasons behind this application "not working" are not really related to the application itself, the fact that it's current user base is so small makes it ineffective. Perhaps this will change over time as more people add this application to their profiles...

Visit Trakzor for more information

(Update: Nov.30th, 2007 - the limited tracking functions that this app offered may not work on Facebook anymore)

Other Facebook Trackers

Hmm, not very encouraging so far, huh? Well, what about the popular Google Analytics web site tracking code? Would this work on Facebook?

Indeed, it does, to a limited extent at least. Facebooking101 installed a snippet of Google Analytics tracking code on our Facebook profile as an experiment to see whether or not not it would track visitor data. While the Analytics code does seem to track the number of unique visitors you get to your Facebook profile, what it doesn't do is provide any information about WHO these visitors were, and HOW OFTEN each visited, which is what most of you want to know. So, we can scratch using Google Analytics on Facebook for now...

The bottom line is.... that so far, Facebook has been successful at preventing people from installing trackers in their profiles! Sorry. : (