Visitor Trac is my incarnation of the menu depth expression from UseIt, Jakob Neilson’s website This script dynamically keeps track of the last 5-6 pages that a visitor clicks through on your site. It keeps this information for 7 days. The information is stored in individual text files (I realize this makes it slower, but it also makes installation very easy) and the text files are time-managed. It degerates the link table once there is more thn 5 click throughs and the files are checked for date and time difference every time they are accessed. There are a few benefits of this script that should be mentioned here. I have come upon many bulletin boards where I keep track of certain topics and I have to click through a bunch of links before I can get to what I was viewing the last time I was there. This script would improve the server load and click through rates in such a case. I personally run a large school website which hosts a lot of static information that is embedded in a relatively cimplicated link structure. This script will make menu navigation for repeat visitors a snap. It should increase the usability of the site tremendously. If you would like to see this script in action, please visit my weblog, Mindful Musings and look towards the top of the page for the link structure.
This script is very simple to install. Download the following Source Zip File and unzip the single php script inside. Just copy this script to the part of the page you would like the links bar to appear (within Div tags if needed) and change the default URL at line 16 and you are ready to go. One item of concern is the growing number of text files that are generated. An update will have the required tools to manage the growth of these text files. This is not implimented yet. Please let me know what you think of this script.
