Page View Counter like on StackOverFlow

Question

What is the best way to implement the page view counter like the ones they have here on the site where each question has a \"Views\" counter?

Factoring in Performanc

Answer 1

I'm a fan of @Guillaume's style of implementation. I use a transparent GIF handler and in-memory queues to batch-up sets of changes that are then periodically flushed using a seperate thread created in global.asax.

The handler implements IHttpHandler, processes the request parameters e.g. page id, language etc., updates the queue, then response.writes the transparent GIF.

By moving persistent changes to a seperate thread than the user-request you also deal much better with potential serialization issues from running multiple servers etc.

Of course you could just pay someone else to do the work too e.g. with transparent gifs.