Redirecting links via click.

[KonataTheOtaku]

How would you go about making a hyperlink that can only be visited once before changing to another one? (Like tracking the amount of times the link was visited, and when it reaches a certain number it switches.)

[Ingolme]

Does it matter who has clicked on the link? That means: if person A clicks on the link, does person B from halfway across the world see the counter increase?

 

Does this reset after each browsing session or is the change registered forever?

[KonataTheOtaku]

It wouldnt and you mean the link will change forever / after each browsing session, right? I was thinking as if one person who visits the link first gets to see one thing, and then everyone else who follows the link will be redirected somewhere else. (kind of like those things where it's only one per person.)

Edited December 11, 2014 by KonataTheOtaku

[Ingolme]

You'll need to store some data on the server. I'd just make a file for it.

The link will target a page, which I'll call "target.php". Inside target.php:

<?php// Get the number from the file if the file existsif(file_exists('counter.txt')) {    // Cast the contents of the file to an integer    $counter = (int) file_get_contents('counter.txt');} else {    // If the file does not exist, the counter is zero    $counter = 0;}// If the page hasn't been visited yet the counter will be zero (and just in case we'll also include negative numbers)if($counter <= 0) {?><h1>Page content for first viewer</h1><?php} else {?><h1>Page content for all other viewers</h1><?php}// Increase the counter and save it to the file$counter++;file_put_contents('counter.txt', $counter);?>

This is going to expire really quickly if it takes just a single visitor to make the first content unavailable forever.

[KonataTheOtaku]

Thank you~!