PHP Cookie Tracking

[Christoph]

I am in need of tracking a visitor across 2 pages. On the entry page when he gets to my site I set a cookie and store the referring keyword in MySQL. My goal is to drive the visitor to page 2. I want to track which keyword the user who makes it to page 2 originally arrived with.

Here is how I set the cookie:

<?php
$kwd = $_GET['seed'];
setcookie("kwdCookie", $kwd, time()+3600, "/");
?>

A different script stores it in MySQL in a field called "entrykw". Now when/if the visitor goes to page 2 I want the cookie variable/keyword stored in the same DB in the field "exitkw".

I don't know how to track the cookie to page 2? I thought about using PHP sessions, but my knowledge in that area is even worse.

Anyone knows what I need to do to track the cookie and how to enter the data back into MySQL?

Thanks.

Chris

[Raju Gautam]

Do you mean ?

echo $_COOKIE['kwdCookie']; 

This will return your keyword that was in the variable '$kwd'. I am not sure whether this simple one is what you are looking for or not..? :-)

[Christoph]

Not what I am looking for - echo is easy

Ok, I researched sessions and are able to write the data to a text file - but have some problems. My data is not appending and the output looks weird when I import it into Excel.

Here is what I use on page #1 (entry page of visitor)

<?php
session_start();
//register variables
session_register("kwd");
session_register("kwip");
session_register("kwreferer");
session_register("kwlocation");
session_register("kwquery");
//variables definition
$kwd = $_GET['seed'];
$kwip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$kwreferer = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];
$kwlocation = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$kwquery = $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
setcookie("kwdCookie", $kwd, time()+3600, "/");
//write data to file
$sessionfile = fopen("sessionfile.txt", "w");
fputs($sessionfile, session_encode( ) );
fclose($sessionfile);
?>

As mentioned the data is not appending. I also do not know if I need to destroy the session here or not.

On page #2 I use the following:

<?php
session_start();
//variables definition
$kwd = $_GET['seed'];
$kwip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$kwreferer = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];
$kwlocation = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$kwquery = $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
setcookie("kwdCookie", $kwd, time()+3600, "/");
//write data to file
$sessionfile = fopen("sessionfile2.txt", "w");
fputs($sessionfile, session_encode( ) );
fclose($sessionfile);
session_destroy();
?>

Again, it does not seem to append the data. Also - is the session destroy correctly used here? It does not seem to do it, because all testing is not working unless I use a second browser session.

Any additional help would be appreciated. Bonus question (just kidding): How could I get this data into the same MySQL database from here?

Thanks for your help.

Chris

[eggman2001]

I am in need of tracking a visitor across 2 pages. On the entry page when he gets to my site I set a cookie and store the referring keyword in MySQL. My goal is to drive the visitor to page 2. I want to track which keyword the user who makes it to page 2 originally arrived with.

Here is how I set the cookie:



A different script stores it in MySQL in a field called "entrykw". Now when/if the visitor goes to page 2 I want the cookie variable/keyword stored in the same DB in the field "exitkw".

I don't know how to track the cookie to page 2? I thought about using PHP sessions, but my knowledge in that area is even worse.

Anyone knows what I need to do to track the cookie and how to enter the data back into MySQL?

Thanks.

Chris

A little late, but why not read the value of the cookie named 'kwdCookie' on page 2 using $_COOKIE['kwdCookie'] ? This way, page 2 can see whether a cookie was set and then see what value of $kwd was set on page 1.