[RESOLVED] referrals

Wales

Do I need access to apache to use referral scripts? I'm trying to have a page that displays what site people are coming from to my website.

bpat1434

No, but you have to have browsers that send the referrer header. Otherwise, you can use "custom" links that send a unique $_GET value that assocaites that value with whatever site.

bradgrafelman

As bpat points out, not all browsers/proxies allow the referrer header to be sent; some browsers/extensions allow you to easily manipulate the header as well.

Still, if a referrer was sent, you can access it via $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'].

Wales

I added a file to my site with:

<?
echo $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];
?>

I'm on a shared host and have webalizer to view the referrals, but I want more. The above code isn't showing any results. Am I doing something wrong? I've left it on the website for a day and have received hits.

bradgrafelman

Well what do you mean "showing any results?" The code you posted doesn't record anything, and you'll only see it if a) you visit that page via a link from a different page (e.g. you can't just open your browser and visit that page), and b) your browser is set to send that header and you don't have any intermediate proxies/software that's removing it.

You should also change that to use the full '<?php' versus the short tag '<?' as the latter has long since been deprecated.

Wales

Oh my fault. I thought that recorded the websites people come from to visit my website.