I am using ColdFusion 8 and jQuery 1.7.
** This is a programming question, because the solution I am questioning requires programming. It may not be the right solution to the problem, but if it is, then I need to figure out how to best program the concept. **
When a user comes to our site, we track their session by writing various CGI variables to a database using a CFC and stored procures. First we filter out non human traffic by keywords in the user agent such as “bot”. Unfortunately a lot of bots and spammers mask their user agents. Later, we try to exclude from our visitor reports the bad bots and a few other known entities that are scraping pages and such. But this is a manual process.
We are considering using an additional/alternate method of tracking usage. Once the user’s page loads, we will use JavaScript to send the CGI variables from the client back to our server and store them. Specifically, we’ll write the server variables to JavaScript on each page and then have JavaScript send them right back to us. If a bot or user doesn’t fully view the page or have JavaScript enabled, the usage won’t be counted is a real user.
Correct me if I am wrong, but this is the same method that Google Analytics uses to track user behavior.
Our goal is to eliminate good and bad bots from being counted as visitors in our reports. Does using JavaScript on a page like this minimize bots being counted? Is there a gaping hole in this plan?
No I don’t think that’s a gaping whole. I wonder what percentage of users have JavaScript turned off though. For instance, there is an extension for Chrome that allows you to easily ‘trust’ a site, so most of my browsing is done with js turned off.
Actually though, it was getting to be a pain in the neck and I eventually uninstalled it. 🙂
One thing you could consider is the time that user is on a page. Chances are that if they’re moving around faster than a human, then they’re not.