Manual Heatmaps are being retired and replaced by Continuous Heatmaps. #
Manual Heatmaps are not available in accounts created after February 28, 2022 and we will begin fully retiring Manual Heatmaps for all WebMaxy accounts from April 25, 2022. When Manual Heatmaps are retired, historical Manual Heatmap data will no longer be available. The data retention period for Manual Heatmaps will also not apply.
Visit our Moving from Manual to Continuous Heatmaps article for guidance on how to export your Manual Heatmaps and to learn how Continuous Heatmaps give you more relevant, higher-quality insights, in less time.
When your users load your WebMaxy Tracking Code through their browser, WebMaxy initiates requests to files that are needed to track usage.
Scripts (.js files) #
webmaxy-xxxx.js (where xxxx is the site ID)
This file contains and updates changes to the settings of reports and Surveys and Feedback widgets you have set up. Once this file is loaded it requests the modules-xxxx.js, which is described below. This file is only cached for one minute.
modules-xxxx.js (where xxxx is a hash value)
This file contains the code required to track your users and will also trigger any Surveys and Feedback widgets you set up on your site. This file accounts for about 99% of the script’s file size and changes much less frequently. We cache this for much longer: 365 days or when changed. This reduces needless loading for your users.
XHR requests and WebSockets #
XHR: visit-data
This POST request is what tracks a page visit from a user and includes visit information such as the path of the current URL, browser window dimensions, and the user’s WebMaxy User ID.
XHR: xxxxx (Where xxxxx is a Survey ID)
This request happens whenever a user submits a Survey widget response. For every response/answer sent, a new POST request occurs.
XHR: content
This POST request sends the original HTML the user loaded for every page visited during their session on the site. This is then used to replay back their session recording.
HTML is not sent to WebMaxy if there is already a copy #
If the same HTML file already exists on our servers, we will not re-save the HTML file.
XHR: deferred_page_content
This POST request only happens once to a single user per Heatmap, per device. It happens for the first user to a page after you have set a Heatmap up. The request sends the HTML for the page. This is the HTML used to capture a screenshot of the page used by your Heatmap.
WebSocket: ws
This WebSocket only starts if:
- Recordings are enabled.
- A Heatmap is targeting this page.
- A Form analysis report is targeting this page.
This connection stays open while the user navigates and interacts with the website. WebSockets appear as PENDING status: 101 ‘switch protocol’ in the Chrome Dev Tools console. The pending status is what keeps the connection alive while data is being sent.
All XHR requests appear to occur twice #
This happens because unlike simple requests these are “pre-flighted” requests. These first send an HTTP OPTIONS request header to the resource on the other domain in order to determine whether the actual request is safe to send. Cross-site requests are pre-flighted like this since they may have implications for user data.
Adam Wilson #
Adam Wilson comes with an experience of 12+ years in the IT industry. As a Customer Success Manager, he has been researching and trying to understand the customers’ behavior in different scenarios. He has also studied human psychology to relate it to the purchase journey of the customers. His published books on customer psychology and behavior have received many honors and awards from various enterprises.
