Hey, I'm looking to track users average time on a website (in the same way that Google analytics does) for internal administration.
What's the easiest way to do this?
Doesn't explain how to actually get the time, just how to average it once you've got it.
Slokun
2010-08-20 21:15:34
+1
A:
Main way I can think of:
When the user first hits a page, you log, say, their IP address, the page loaded, and the time. Then, using some Javascript and AJAX, when they leave the page, you use the unload event to send to an AJAX handler that records the page and when they leave.
You would need to use some sort of ID, apart from a session, to store the page visit. Say I have 5 instances of the homepage open, you'd want to log each one individually. So, something like this:
- Access the page, generate a code (let's say page:
index.phpcode:2345) - Store this in a database table with their IP, and visit time
- Unload event fire, call the AJAX, passing the page & code
- Look up in the DB for the IP, page, and code, and log the leave time
If they visit index.php again, you would generate another code, say, 36789. Use something that generates a random GUID is best, so you can (essentially) ignore any possibilities of collisions on the same IP/page/code combination.
Slokun
2010-08-20 21:21:53
And what will you do, if at Opera browser unload event doesn`t works?
DimaKrasun
2010-08-20 21:24:56
@DimaKrasun I dind't realize that would be an issue. Thought it was supported in all browsers, but I haven't touched Opera much at all. Learn something new every day.
Slokun
2010-08-23 02:04:55
+5
A:
You can get the time in next ways:
- Once user visit your site, save current time at cookie as "visited", and at next visit you can grab it, if it was set.
- And more expensive method: when the page loads, start js timer, and on page unload send to server time which user sent and save it to db.
- And if window.unload does not work at Opera, you can send time to server every 5 seconds, and stores it to DB.
If you need, I can write an example script.
UPDATE:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Collect time</title>
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-1.4.2.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function()
{
var start = null;
$(window).load(function(event) {
start = event.timeStamp;
});
$(window).unload(function(event) {
var time = event.timeStamp - start;
$.post('/collect-user-time/ajax-backend.php', {time: time});
})
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
And backend script:
<?php
$time = intval($_POST['time']);
if (!file_exists('data.txt')) {
file_put_contents('data.txt', $time . "\n");
} else {
file_put_contents('data.txt', file_get_contents('data.txt') . $time . "\n");
}
But as I said it wouldn`t work at Opera browser
DimaKrasun
2010-08-20 21:23:34
Awesome, thanks for the help - I'd love to see a script if you have the time to write a quick one? Can I use page.unload over an entire domain?
Walker
2010-08-20 21:27:07
+1
A:
There really isn't an effective way to do this with PHP, as PHP is server-side and provides no way of determining when the page was closed. You need to use javascript to determine this.
What I would do is use javascript to start a timer on window.onload and then end the timer on window.onunload. Then you can store the data and do what you want with it.
jordanstephens
2010-08-20 21:23:51