HTTP_REFERER correct usage

faifas

Hey there,
I've been planning to see from where do my users come to my site.
So in fact HTTP_REFERER should help, but the problem is that is doesn't unless user comes to direct page for example www.mydomain.com/index.php then HTTP_REFERER will work.
Anyway when entering www.mydomain.com browser goes to www.mydomain.com/index.html and if i redirect it to index.php my http_referer would show that user came from www.mydomain.com/index.html
Any clues how to solve this out?
Thanks in advance,
Faifas

NogDog

The HTTP_REFERER is not something you can depend on being set, or being set correctly. The best solution I can think of is to use sessions and track the user's path through your site via a variable there. Or you could even add values to an array if you want to keep a realtime "log" of sorts:

<?php
session_start();
// get last page if applicable:
$referer = (isset($_SESSION['history'])) ?
            $_SESSION['history'][count($_SESSION['history'])-1] : 
            NULL;
// add current page to history:
$_SESSION['history'][] = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];

// user referer value:
if($referer != '/index.php')
{
  header("Location: http://www.yoursite.com/index.php");
  exit;
}
// otherwise go ahead with this page's processing....
?>

faifas

Sorry I didn't made myself clear 😐
I need to use the referrer itself. I mean where do user come from.
For example he googled and found my page. Then he clicked on a link and viola!
It says referrer: google
I hope you understand what i mean 😉

NogDog

$SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] is the only way I know of, and as I mentioned above: it can not be depended on. If the user goes to your page by directly entering the URL in the address bar or by using a bookmark, then there is no referer. Also, depending on the browser and its security settings, it may not send a referer URL anyway. And hackers can intentionally send whatever URL they'd like to send as the referer. Therefore you can use $SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] for (non-critical) information purposes, but your page's processing should not depend on it.

faifas

roger that, thanks 🙂