How to track pageviews without thrashing the MySQL DB

Question

I am trying to track pageviews in MySQL DB using the following query:

\"UPDATE $table SET pageviews = pageviews + 1 WHERE page_id = 1\"

This is fine

Answer 1

I'd consider gathering raw hits with the fastest writing engine you have available:

INSERT INTO hits (page_id, hit_date) VALUES (:page_id, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP)

... and then running a periodical process, possibly a cron command line script, that would count and store the page count summary you need in an hourly or daily basis:

INSERT INTO daily_stats (page_id, num_hits, day)
SELECT page_id, SUM(hit_id)
FROM hits
WHERE hit_date='2012-11-29'
GROUP BY page_id

(Queries are mere examples, tweak to your needs)

Another typical solution is good old log parsing, feeding a script like AWStats with your web server's logs.

Clarification: My first suggestion is fairly similar to @fire's but I didn't get into storage details. The key point is to delay heavy processing and just the minimum amount of raw info in the fastest way.