How to track user time on site

php jquery codeigniter analytics

20,526

Solution 1

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', $time . "\n", FILE_APPEND);
}

But as I said it wouldn`t work at Opera browser

Solution 2

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.php code: 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.

Solution 3

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.

Solution 4

Use timeonsite JS for web and mobile browsers. It tracks time on site accurately.

<script type="text/javascript">
        var Tos;
        (function(d, s, id, file) {
            var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
            if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
            js = d.createElement(s);
            js.id = id;
            js.onload = function() {
                var config = {
                    trackBy: 'seconds' 
                };
                if (TimeOnSiteTracker) {
                    Tos = new TimeOnSiteTracker(config);
                }
            };
            js.src = file;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
        } (document, 'script', 'TimeOnSiteTracker', 'https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/timeonsite/1.2.0/timeonsitetracker.min.js'));
    </script>

At the page end, call

<script>
    Tos.getTimeOnPage();
        //Response ->
        {
            TOSId: 1129620185532,
            TOSSessionKey: "14802525481391382263",
            TOSUserId: "anonymous",
            title: "Test application - TimeOnSiteTracker",
            URL: "http://tos-localdata.chennai/home.php"
            entryTime: "2016-11-27 13:15:48.663",
            currentTime: "2016-11-27 13:17:31.663",
            timeOnPage: 103,
            timeOnSite: 0,
            timeOnPageTrackedBy: "second",
            timeOnPageByDuration: "0d 00h 01m 43s",
            timeOnSiteByDuration: "0d 00h 00m 00s",
            trackingType: "tos",
        }
</script>

As simple as that,

It seems to work even in mobile browsers like IPhone, IPad, mobile Safari etc. that doesn't support window.unload() events natively.

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20,526

Author by

Walker

Designer & developer!

Updated on July 09, 2022

Comments

Walker almost 2 years

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?
Dmytro Krasun almost 14 years

And what will you do, if at Opera browser unload event doesn`t works?
Walker almost 14 years

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?
Dmytro Krasun almost 14 years

Wait, i start to write script
Tarka almost 14 years

@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.
Gowri over 13 years

many times the ajax call not working .. before sending ajax request page unload is happening . so couldn't store leave time many times