Logging hit only once

[Anon]

I'm trying to set up a custom built hit logger on my site but I can't figure out how to log the hit only when they first come to the site, not every time they reload/link back to/etc the index page.

i know i could make an index page that logs the hit and forwards them to the real index page, but that just seems kinda hacky.

is there a way to just log it once a single 'session' or something has been started?

[Anon]

sorry, forgot to mention this. I'm using Apache/PHP

[[deleted]]

A simple way is to put a cookie on the client.
If they hit and the cookie is not there, count the hit. If they hit and the cookie is there, don't count the hit.