Is there away to know if a user is still on my site - instead of using cookies or sessions

Question

I am wondering, if there is a real-time way time ping a user and see if that user is still only.

My site uses jQuery, PHP and CRON jobs so I was wondering what would be the best way to check that the user is still online.

Each user is issues a cookie aka session key but I don't want to just go by that.

I know real-time analytics are able to it, using javascript so I wonder if I could also do the same thing.

Thanks

Answer 1

Any method you choose will work the same as what you mentioned, it will just update more often.

You can use an ajax call that pings the server every x seconds and as soon as that stops you'll know they left at most x seconds ago.

A similar option is to use WebSockets or Flash to hold a socket connection with the server and mark them as logged off the moment that socket connection is broken.

Both these options are a bit more difficult to scale than sessions and cookies.

Answer 2

it could be done via continues ajax call from client but not recommended.

I suggest use flash or something like that to reduce number of ajax request to the server.

Answer 3

Question is very confused and ambiguous.

No you can't 'ping' a user. You can ping an IP adderss - but the IP addresses you see at your server probably don't map on a one-to-one basis with users.

Which user? All users? Why? What will you do with the information? Have you got a better reason than "I don't want to" for not using session data?

"I know real-time analytics are able to" - then you must know the method they use to do this - or are you just buying the sales speak?

Answer 4

I guess only way to get "real-time" data is to use web-sockets.

another way which is less acurate ( with delay ) is to use repited ajax calls. say 1 per 60 seconds.