How can PHP be used to count and track link clicks on a website?

One way to count and track link clicks on a website using PHP is to create a script that increments a counter in a database each time a specific link is clicked. This can be achieved by adding a unique identifier to each link and then using PHP to update the corresponding counter in the database when that link is clicked.

<?php

// Connect to the database
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "link_tracking";

$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}

// Get the unique identifier from the clicked link
$link_id = $_GET['link_id'];

// Update the click count in the database
$sql = "UPDATE links SET click_count = click_count + 1 WHERE id = $link_id";

if ($conn->query($sql) === TRUE) {
    echo "Click count updated successfully";
} else {
    echo "Error updating click count: " . $conn->error;
}

$conn->close();

?>