[Kobra]

Is there any way to know if things like this are only one visitor or many?

194.167.80.20, 194.167.82.113, 194.167.91.40

Technicaly unique users are associated with unique ips, but reality is a bit different, a single user can generate more than thousand different ips in a single visit

Is there something unique for each user that can be used instead of ip, for guest count?

I thought about setting up a cookie for each user with an unique id, but users can delete cookies whenever they want and that wouldnt be trustable as well.
Also there was the php user_agent thing, but most users have similar systems, and as soon user upgrades anything, it just fails again.

[bizzar528]

a single user can generate more than thousand different ips in a single visit

That's a pretty skewed way to look at it. Typically, 1 IP = 1 user unless that IP happens to be proxy server. In that case, 1 IP = many users. The only reason why 1 user = many IPs is if that person was using multple gateways to simulate many users (sort of useful for pay-per-click sites or browser games that capture traffic) but this is typically a deceitful way of browsing and would only really matter if they had a purpose for it. I don't know of anyone who uses multiple gateways for general browsing. Why bother? There are also other tools out there that will catch header information and skew that as well (usually for blocking referer information).

The easiest way to measure guest count (a basic hit couter?) is to have a php include that will add a +1 onload. This way, regardless of browser or IP, their visit is registered. How this gets implemented comes down to how your site is set up and what your really trying to get out of that information.

[Fahad_1]

the best way to know a unique visitor is by using a cookie.

a cookie is then sent to ur visitor's pc. and when the other person using the same IP visits your site, u wil be easily able to detect that he hasnt got that cookie - so he is considered as unique.

this is how most of the hit counters work...even me!