Javascript, track iframes redirecting top window

Question

Since there is no way to prevent an iframe from redirecting the top frame besides sandboxing which prevents other features required for viewability tracking I would like to trac

Answer 1

If you have control over all your frames you can implement interaction between frames with postMessage. Flow:

1. Frame want to execute redirect - it sends a message to parent frame with redirect request.
2. Parent frame executing redirect and know which frame caused a redirect.

Parent:

window.addEventListener("message", (event) => {
    // show message source (your frame)
    console.log(event.source);

    const message = event.data;
    console.log(`Frame ID: ${message.frameId}`);

    if(message.messageType === "redirect") {
        window.location.href = message.redirectUrl;
    }
});

Child frame:

function redirect(url) {
    var message = {
        messageType: "redirect",
        frameId: "frame1"
        redirectUrl: url
    }
    window.parent.postMessage(message, "*");
}