What are the potential issues with relying solely on IP addresses for visitor tracking in PHP?

Relying solely on IP addresses for visitor tracking in PHP can be unreliable because multiple users can share the same IP address (e.g., in the case of a shared network or proxy server). To solve this issue, it is recommended to also use cookies to track unique visitors. 

// Use cookies for visitor tracking in addition to IP addresses
if(isset($_COOKIE['visitor_id'])) {
    $visitor_id = $_COOKIE['visitor_id'];
} else {
    $visitor_id = uniqid(); // Generate a unique visitor ID
    setcookie('visitor_id', $visitor_id, time() + (86400 * 30), '/'); // Set a cookie that expires in 30 days
}

echo "Visitor ID: " . $visitor_id;

Keywords

IP addresses visitor tracking PHP cookies user identification

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