Finding out where someone found the link to your site

[Qwerty]

Ok, you being the owner of a online game would want to know where your users are comming from, and there is an easy way to do that without adding ?red=http://www.somewhere.com to the address.

Nearly all browsers send the referal link to the server, and the server stores this in the PHP global variable $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']. And all you need to do is store that information in a file or database, and keep a tally of each referal.

Easy

[JGadrow]

Just be aware that any information received from the browser may be fabricated with malicious intent. But, yes, this is the most effective method of determining referrals.

[Scion]

Isnt this information also included in Apache's log files?

Why bother writing it yourself again when its already done for you?

[Qwerty]

On some hosting services, you don't get access to the Apache logs

[JGadrow]

Additionally, if you're creating your own ad system, you may find it easier to store in a database as opposed to reading the log file.

[bbgames]

For this sort of thing, I've always been a fan of using a logfile analyzer like awstats - although if you don't have access to your log files and your webhost won't install it for you, you're sort of stuck without it.

[AcidicOne]

correct me if i am wrong being a newbie and all to gaming, but i have had various sites, blogs etc using joomla and wordpress, and the one thing that has remained constant was that every host I have ever used had either cpanel or something similiar which had built in awstats, or some other form of traffic analyzer

[jannesiera]

You could also use google Analitics .

[Qwerty]

You might like to intergrate this information into your own administration panel if you have one, rather than the hosting accounts.