How to count visitors on website in laravel 8

How to Count Visitors on a Website in Laravel 8

Laravel provides several methods to count visitors on a website. Below is an example of how you can implement visitor tracking in Laravel 8:

1. First, you need to create a new middleware to handle visitor tracking. Create a new file called “VisitorMiddleware.php” in the “app/Http/Middleware” directory.

<?php
  
  namespace App\Http\Middleware;
  
  use Closure;
  use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Cache;
  
  class VisitorMiddleware
  {
      public function handle($request, Closure $next)
      {
          $expiresAt = now()->addMinutes(10); // Set the cache expiration time
          $ipAddress = $request->ip();
      
          // Check if the visitor's IP address is already stored in the cache
          if (!Cache::has('visitor_' . $ipAddress)) {
              // If not, store the IP address in the cache and increment the visitor count
              Cache::put('visitor_' . $ipAddress, true, $expiresAt);
              Cache::increment('visitor_count', 1);
          }
      
          return $next($request);
      }
  }

In the example above, we use Laravel’s cache system to store the visitor’s IP address as a key-value pair. We also increment a “visitor_count” cache key to keep track of the total number of visitors.

2. Next, you need to register the middleware in the “app/Http/Kernel.php” file.

<?php
  
  // ...
  
  protected $middlewareGroups = [
      'web' => [
          // ...
          \App\Http\Middleware\VisitorMiddleware::class
      ],
  
      // ...
  ];
  
  // ...

Make sure you add the middleware in the “web” middleware group, as it should be applied to all web routes.

3. Finally, you can display the visitor count anywhere on your website by accessing the “visitor_count” cache key. For example, you can add the following code in your view:

<div class="visitor-count">
    Total Visitors: {{ Cache::get('visitor_count', 0) }}
  </div>

The code above retrieves the value of the “visitor_count” cache key from the cache. If the key does not exist, it will default to 0. You can style the “visitor-count” div as needed to display the visitor count on your website.