How to track page views

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