Laravel back button
Stefan Izdrail
Founder & Senior Architect · 2026-06-29
Title: Creating Custom Laravel Back Button With Referrer Tracking
Body: In this blog post, we will learn how to create an effective back button inside your Laravel application while keeping track of the referrers. This allows you to differentiate users who come from distinct sources and make informed decisions based on that data. We will discuss the importance of tracking referrer information, common challenges, and a practical solution to implement this feature.
1. Why Track Referrer Information?
Understanding where your visitors are coming from is vital for identifying potential areas of improvement in your marketing strategies or determining which channels are more efficient at bringing in new users. If you know that most of your referral traffic comes from a specific source, you can allocate more resources there while focusing on other aspects of your site to boost engagement and conversions.
2. Challenges in Implementing Back Button with Referrer Tracking
While creating a back button with referrer information might sound easy, this process can be tricky due to browser cache, session management, and security concerns. A simple solution like using `$_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']` or storing the referrer data in the user's session could lead to inconsistencies in tracking results as these methods may not always be reliable.
3. Best Practices for Tracking Referrers in Laravel
To tackle this issue, we can adopt a more robust approach by implementing a unique identifier for each user and storing it alongside the referrer information. This unique key will serve as a stable source of data that remains consistent across different sessions. Here's how to do it:
a) Create a new model called `ReferrerTracker` with the following structure:
```php
class ReferrerTracker extends Model
{
protected $fillable = [
'user_id',
'referer',
'unique_key'
];
}
```
b) Create a `ReferrerTrackerController` with the following methods:
i. `storeReferrerData()`
This method will receive a request containing referrer information and create or update the corresponding entry in the database:
```php
public function storeReferrerData(Request $request)
{
// Check if there's already an existing record for this user
$referrerTracker = ReferrerTracker::where('user_id', auth()->user()->id)->first();
if (!$referrerTracker) {
// Create a new entry with the current referrer URL and unique key
ReferrerTracker::create([
'user_id' => auth()->user()->id,
'referer' => $request->get('referrer'),
'unique_key' => Str::random(32)
]);
} else {
// Update the existing entry with the new referrer URL
ReferrerTracker::where('user_id', auth()->user()->id)->update(['referer' => $request->get('referrer')]);
}
}
```
ii. `fetchReferrerData()`
This method will retrieve the referrer information for a specific user from the database:
```php
public function fetchReferrerData(Request $request)
{
return ReferrerTracker::where('user_id', auth()->user()->id)->first();
}
```
4. Creating the Back Button with Referrer Tracking
Now that we have our tracking models and controllers in place, all we need is an easy-to-use method to display the back button on each page of our application. A custom Laravel component can help us achieve this goal while providing a convenient way to manage different page layouts:
```php
attributes($attributes);
$this->referrerData = $referrerData;
}
public function render()
{
if ($this->referrerData) {
return "mergeAttributes(['class' => 'btn btn-primary back-button'])}>Go Back to “{$this->referrerData->referrer}”";
} else {
return "Back";
}
}
}
```
5. Conclusion
By creating a custom Laravel component with referrer tracking, you can effectively manage and display back buttons on your application while maintaining valuable data about the users' origin. This information enables you to make informed decisions based on user behavior and optimize various aspects of your website for better results.