How to Implement a Reliable Web Page Counter?

Question

What's a good way to implement a Web Page counter?

On the surface this is a simple problem, but it gets problematic when dealing with search engine crawlers and robots, multiple clicks by the same user, refresh clicks.

Specifically what is a good way to ensure links aren't just 'clicked up' by user by repeatedly clicking? IP address? Cookies? Both of these have a few drawbacks (IP Addresses aren't necessarily unique, cookies can be turned off).

Also what is the best way to store the data? Increment a counter individually or store each click as a record in a log table, then summarize occasionally.

Any live experience would be helpful,

+++ Rick ---

Answer 1

Use IP Addresses in conjunction with Sessions. Count every new session for an IP address as one hit against your counter. You can store this data in a log database if you think you'll ever need to look through it. This can be useful for calculating when your site gets the most traffic, how much traffic per day, per IP, etc.