Using htaccess to track visitors?

Question

I have a demo server where I put samples of my apps, I send potential customers links to those apps. Is it possible to use htaccess to track visitors, without adding tracking capability to the apps themselves? The data I'm interested in are:

1. date and time of page visit
2. ip of visitor
3. url of the page visited
4. referrer
5. post and get (query string) data if any

Answer 1

That entirely depends on your webserver, what options it provides for htaccess overrides.

For Apache, the access log logs what you are looking for http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/logs.html#accesslog but is not configurable via htaccess.

Answer 2

no, that's impossible to use .htaccess file, because it's merely a configuration file, not executable one.

However you can use another web-server capability - log files.
Everything you asking for is already stored in the access log, almost in the same format you listed here.

An important note: unlike google analytics or any other third-party or scripting solution, web-server logs is the only reliable and exact source of tracking data, contains very request been made to your site.

Answer 3

Best way it to use google analytics.
You will get all what you need and much much more.

Answer 4

I know this thread has been quiet for a while, but i it not possible to use the prepend?? directive that prepends a script to all visits to track site/page visits ?

I have not got the code (tried something similarthough was not successfull) but I used the prepend directive to prepend a script that "switches" on gzip for all site visits. I am sure the same can be implemented for logs (for those of us with cheap shared servers!) Come on coders, do us all a favour and reveal the secret!