visitor counter using cookie

[Ben]

Hi all,
This has been asked in the past in different ways. I'm still a bit
confused about setting up counters. I'm quite new to php. I've read
few tutorials about writing counters using cookie and sessions. It
sounds quite straight-forward. But what I'm unsure about is- if the
browser is set to accept cookies manually and the user blocks the
cookie, what happens? I think in that case, the counter is not
incremented because the value is not returned by the browser. Then we
are likely to get inaccurate counters. Is there a way to get
"accurate" counters?

Thanx
Ben

[Erwin Moller]

Re: visitor counter using cookie

Ben wrote:
[color=blue]
> Hi all,
> This has been asked in the past in different ways. I'm still a bit
> confused about setting up counters. I'm quite new to php. I've read
> few tutorials about writing counters using cookie and sessions. It
> sounds quite straight-forward. But what I'm unsure about is- if the
> browser is set to accept cookies manually and the user blocks the
> cookie, what happens? I think in that case, the counter is not
> incremented because the value is not returned by the browser. Then we
> are likely to get inaccurate counters. Is there a way to get
> "accurate" counters?
>
> Thanx
> Ben[/color]

Hi Ben,

I think the articles did confuse you a bit. :-)
If you use a cookie for a visitorcounter, that counting only happens for
THAT visitor. But cookies can be important, read on.

You need to store somehow on the server how many visitors you have.

This can be done very easily by PHP using a plain simple file, or a
database.
If You are new to databases, I advise you to use a plain file, it is much
easier.

You just increase the counter every time a visitor calls a page on your
site.
This is often done by using a image that calls a PHP-script.

What about cookies?
What I describe above is not actually a visitorcounter: It is a
pagehitcounter.
If you want to count the number of unique visitors, you could use a cookie
for that.
This is how you do that:
1) If the countscript (possible the one that returns an image) is called, it
checks for the existance of a certain name set in the cookie.
eg "visitedalready "
1a) It is there: do nothing
1b) It is not there: set it in the cookie, and increase your counter by 1.

If cookies are disabled you could switch to SESSION-storage of that
"visitedalready ".
The advantage is that Session will be build even if cookies are disabled.
This is done by url-rewriting, something like this:
phpscript.php?S ESSIONID=asghdf hgasfdghasfdhga sfd

Hope that helps a bit.

Regards,
Erwin Moller

[Ian.H]

Re: visitor counter using cookie

On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 05:19:28 -0700, Ben wrote:
[color=blue]
> Hi all,
> This has been asked in the past in different ways. I'm still a bit
> confused about setting up counters. I'm quite new to php. I've read
> few tutorials about writing counters using cookie and sessions. It
> sounds quite straight-forward. But what I'm unsure about is- if the
> browser is set to accept cookies manually and the user blocks the
> cookie, what happens? I think in that case, the counter is not
> incremented because the value is not returned by the browser. Then we
> are likely to get inaccurate counters. Is there a way to get
> "accurate" counters?
>
> Thanx
> Ben[/color]


There's only one "reliable" way Ben, and that's logfile analysis. "Hit
counters" aren't worth the time they take to code (3 mins?).

If you have access to access_log, google for Webalizer and AWStats. AWS is
more complete in its analysis, but both are great tools.

An example of these 2 tools in action if interested:


<http://stats.web.digis erv.net/>
<http://aws.digiserv.ne t/awstats.pl?conf ig=dsrc.digiser v.net>


HTH =)



Regards,

Ian

--
Ian.H
digiServ Network
London, UK

http://digiserv.net/

[John Dunlop]

Re: visitor counter using cookie

Ian.H wrote:
[color=blue]
> On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 05:19:28 -0700, Ben wrote:[/color]

[ ... ]
[color=blue][color=green]
> > Is there a way to get "accurate" counters?[/color]
>
> There's only one "reliable" way Ben, and that's logfile analysis.[/color]

But don't equate server load with requests. Logfiles
indicate not requests, but server load. It isn't
practicable to count requests, nor useful to relay server
load statistics to end users.

--
Jock

[Ian.H]

Re: visitor counter using cookie

On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 19:24:23 +0100, John Dunlop wrote:
[color=blue]
> Ian.H wrote:
>[color=green]
>> On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 05:19:28 -0700, Ben wrote:[/color]
>
> [ ... ]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
>> > Is there a way to get "accurate" counters?[/color]
>>
>> There's only one "reliable" way Ben, and that's logfile analysis.[/color]
>
> But don't equate server load with requests. Logfiles
> indicate not requests, but server load. It isn't
> practicable to count requests, nor useful to relay server
> load statistics to end users.[/color]


You've confused me John.. not requests?

My apache logs show nothing of server load (unless I tallied up concurrent
hits for each second of the day and then would be inaccurate.. what
about other services?).. but they do show requests, beit from a human and
browser or google etc.

The OP never mentioned whether this was to be private or publically
displayed values either.. displaying stupid counters to visitors is an
annoyance at best (most places that offer counters are also NULL-routed
here so any visits from myself would once again, cause inaccurate results).



Regards,

Ian

--
Ian.H
digiServ Network
London, UK

http://digiserv.net/

[John Dunlop]

Re: visitor counter using cookie

Ian.H wrote:
[color=blue]
> On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 19:24:23 +0100, John Dunlop wrote:
>[color=green]
> > But don't equate server load with requests. Logfiles
> > indicate not requests, but server load. It isn't
> > practicable to count requests, nor useful to relay server
> > load statistics to end users.[/color]
>
> You've confused me John..[/color]

Sorry Ian.
[color=blue]
> not requests?[/color]

Requests don't necessarily reach the origin server, so
there's no feasible way to count them all. A request for a
resource might be fulfilled by a cache, whilst the origin
server is unaware of the transaction.

Jeffrey P. Goldberg's page on the subject is worth reading:
<http://www.goldmark.or g/netrants/webstats/>.

[ ... ]
[color=blue]
> displaying stupid counters to visitors is an annoyance at best[/color]

Agreed; and in Mr. Goldberg's words, 'there are basically
two ways to put [counters] in your page: the wrong way and
the very wrong way'.

[ ... ]

--
Jock

[Ian.H]

Re: visitor counter using cookie

On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 20:43:17 +0100, John Dunlop wrote:
[color=blue]
> Ian.H wrote:
>[color=green]
>> On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 19:24:23 +0100, John Dunlop wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>> > But don't equate server load with requests. Logfiles
>> > indicate not requests, but server load. It isn't
>> > practicable to count requests, nor useful to relay server
>> > load statistics to end users.[/color]
>>
>> You've confused me John..[/color]
>
> Sorry Ian.[/color]


No probs.. wasn't sure if I was reading things wrong or.... =)

[color=blue][color=green]
>> not requests?[/color]
>
> Requests don't necessarily reach the origin server, so
> there's no feasible way to count them all. A request for a
> resource might be fulfilled by a cache, whilst the origin
> server is unaware of the transaction.[/color]


Ahh gotchya! Indeed and good point.

[color=blue]
> Jeffrey P. Goldberg's page on the subject is worth reading:
> <http://www.goldmark.or g/netrants/webstats/>.[/color]


Bookmarked for later reading =)

[color=blue]
>
> [ ... ]
>[color=green]
>> displaying stupid counters to visitors is an annoyance at best[/color]
>
> Agreed; and in Mr. Goldberg's words, 'there are basically
> two ways to put [counters] in your page: the wrong way and
> the very wrong way'.
>
> [ ... ][/color]


lol! I love it.

Thanks for the clarification John =)



Regards,

Ian

--
Ian.H
digiServ Network
London, UK

http://digiserv.net/