•Re: web page statistics

Unique visitor counts are not possible. Ever. Any logging package that tells you they have it are lying.

You cannot possibly know how many visitors are coming in from behind a corporate firewall, a home NAT'ed network, or AOL, because there's no 1-1 correlation between these users and their IP address, as the fake log analyzer people would have you believe. (It's actually even worse for AOL, because one user will appear to be coming from dozens of IP addresses at the same time.)

So, get over it. You can't get that info. Stop asking. Your life will be simpler. {grin}

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

Comment on •Re: web page statistics

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Re: •Re: web page statistics by CountZero (Bishop) on Mar 27, 2003 at 16:42 UTC
Not even with cookies (provided the visitor allows cookies and does not delete them afterwards)? Of course the information would not be found in the acces-log, but would need to be gathered directly at the level of the web-pages. CountZero "If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law	[reply]
•Re: Re: •Re: web page statistics by merlyn (Sage) on Mar 27, 2003 at 16:45 UTC
If the page is cached at a corporate firewall (or AOL), the second hit (with the different cookie) never gets to you, so you can't tell you had "another" hit. Proxies and caches. They're not going away. In fact, they're being used in greater numbers. So "unique" hits is not possible even more-so now that before. -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.	[reply]
Re: •Re: Re: •Re: web page statistics by CountZero (Bishop) on Mar 27, 2003 at 16:53 UTC
I assume there is no generally sure way to avoid pages being cached/proxied? This may become a problem if you have dynamic web-pages: you are never sure that the user has seen the updated content. CountZero "If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law	[reply]
Re^5: web page statistics by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Mar 30, 2003 at 19:52 UTC
Re: Re^5: web page statistics by CountZero (Bishop) on Mar 30, 2003 at 21:05 UTC
Re: •Re: web page statistics by cfreak (Chaplain) on Mar 27, 2003 at 16:42 UTC
Its just too bad the pointy-haired bosses of the world don't see it that way. (Going through this at work right now). Actually though I'm trying to get this stat package installed, it claims to detect the AOL proxy stuff and its written in Perl so it must be cool .. right? :) Chris Lobster Aliens Are attacking the world!	[reply]