Question

What is the best way to track page views? For instance: SO has how many views a Question has, yet hitting refresh doesn t up the view count.

I ve read that using cookies is a pretty good way to do so, but I m at a loss on how this doesn t get out of hand.

I ve searched all over and can t find a good answer for this.

EDIT:

I also see that another option (once again I could be horribly wrong) is to use Google Analytics API to get page views. Is this even an viable option? How does Stackoverflow, youtube, and others track their views?

Answer 1

You can track them in a database if you re rolling your own. Every time a page loads, you call a method that will decide whether or not to up the page views. You can add whatever criteria you like.

IF IP is unique
OR IP hasn t visited in 20 minutes based on a session variable
ETC
THEN add a page view record

| ID | IPAddress | ViewDateTime |
| 1  | 1.2.3.4   | Oct 18 ...   |

However, session variables can get pretty load intensive on sites with as many visitors as SO. You might have to get a little more creative.

Now, if you don t want to code it, the I would suggest looking into SmarterStats as it reads your server logs and is more robust than analytics.

note: i m not sure about a similar Apache software

Answer 2

I set a session variable with the address I m checking, then toggle it if it s been hit by that browser. In my page template I then check the var for that page and handle as appropriate.

Answer 3

A simple, hacky method:

Create local MySQL table for tracking:

CREATE TABLE pageviews ( pageview_count int(9) default NULL )

Then, on the index.php page, or wherever the user is going to be landing, you can run an update query on that field.

<php
$link = mysql_connect( localhost , root ,  ); 
if (!$link) {
    die( could not connect   .mysql_error());
}
$mysql = mysql_select_db($database_name,$link);
$query = mysql_query( UPDATE pageviews set pageview_count = pageview_count + 1; );
mysql_close();

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