How can I tell if a user has left my website

Question

Is there a way to tell if a user on my website has left (i.e. connection dropped, navigated away etc.) in real time?

I am building a RoR website and want to initiate an event as soon as a user leaves my site for whatever reason (e.g. connection, navigating away from domain etc.)

Thanks in advance for any help.

Answer 1

No, there isn't.

The best you can do is send an AJAX request every X seconds (perhaps only if the user moves the mouse). If the server doesn't receive any requests for 2X seconds, assume that the user left.

Answer 2

Nope.

Http = connectionless

Answer 3

You can do some request in this function:

$(window).bind('beforeunload', function(){ 
  // there
});

Send some Ajax or something to tell the server that this user is leaving the page, but this is not a good idea. In Google analytics and in other statistic services you already can see how long the user stays in your page.