CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpipweb-analytics
Rolen Koh
Rolen Koh

Reputation: 729

How to count website visitors accurately in php?

I am trying to implement visitor counter on a project but I am confused about one thing and it is what to accurately count as one visit or view. If I go with IP based counter then it means even if many people are visiting the website on same computer with same IP (like from a cyber cafe or a shared pc) it will count as one visit. If I go with simply incrementing visits every time homepage is opened then someone can keep refreshing the homepage to increase the count and it will not be accurate page views count.

So neither option gives accurate picture of visits.

So I am thinking of implementing IP based page views and if someone opens the homepage with same IP before 5 minutes it will not be counted as another view. Only after five minutes page count will be increase for same IP. So I want to ask whether this approach will give most accurate page view count or there is any other optimal solution?

Google analytics cannot be used as this website will be used on an intranet network.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1742

Answers (2)

Luceos
Luceos

Reputation: 6730

Google Analytics and other tracking applications use cookies through javascript to track page visits and especially visitors. Due to the fact that cookies can be unique per session of a browser, this makes identifying different people on the same IP more easy.

However as @Ahatius points out, better not to reinvent the wheel if possible.

Google Analytics also has a php api (which I've successfully implemented in the past). However in that scenario you still have to do decide by yourself how to identify visitors and pageviews.

Upvotes: 0

Ahatius
Ahatius

Reputation: 4875

Google Analytics is still an option for internal websites. I created a workflow application which is only available through our internal network, but Google Analytics still works. Only requirement is that the user that uses the application has internet access, so that the Google-Analytics Snippet can communicate with the servers.

I'd not recommend using your own methods to count visitors, unless you're planning to show these informations for all users (like it is the case with the view here on SO). You could still create some kind of internal mechanism easily, given the fact that people authenticate on your application or you can identify them somehow else.

Upvotes: 0

Related Questions