What best practices should be followed when implementing a visitor counter in PHP using sessions?

When implementing a visitor counter in PHP using sessions, it is important to ensure that each unique visitor is counted only once per session. This can be achieved by setting a session variable to track whether a visitor has already been counted. Additionally, the counter should be incremented only if the session variable indicating a new visitor is not set. 

session_start();

if(!isset($_SESSION['visited'])) {
    $_SESSION['visited'] = true;
    
    // Increment the visitor counter
    if(isset($_SESSION['counter'])) {
        $_SESSION['counter']++;
    } else {
        $_SESSION['counter'] = 1;
    }
}

echo "You are visitor number: " . $_SESSION['counter'];

Keywords

sessions visitor counter PHP implementation best practices

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