How to Count number of times website visited and online users in asp.net using C# and VB.Net

Introduction: In this article i am going to explain with example How to count the number of times the website is visited by the visitors/users and the users currently online on the website. We can say we are going to create Hit Counter application in asp.net using both C# and VB.Net language. 
In previous articles i explained How to Convert Rupees,Currency or Numbers to Words and Get age in years,months,days,hours and seconds from DOB and Get Title,Description and Keywords Meta tags from URL and How to increase session timeout period and How to remove sessions and Create and consume WCF Services and What is cookie? Advantages and disadvantages of cookies.

Implementation: First of all we need to add global.asax file.

• So right Click on your website name from Solution explorer -> Add New Item -> Global Application Class. It will be added in the root directory of your website with the name "Global.asax".
• Open the global.aspx file and write the code on the Application_Start, Session_Start and the Session_End event as:

void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)

    {

        // Code that runs on application startup

        Application["SiteVisitedCounter"] = 0;

        //to check how many users have currently opened our site write the following line

        Application["OnlineUserCounter"] = 0;

    }

   void Session_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)

    {

        // Code that runs when a new session is started

        Application.Lock();

        Application["SiteVisitedCounter"] = Convert.ToInt32(Application["SiteVisitedCounter"]) + 1;

        //to check how many users have currently opened our site write the following line

        Application["OnlineUserCounter"] = Convert.ToInt32(Application["OnlineUserCounter"]) + 1;

        Application.UnLock();

    }

void Session_End(object sender, EventArgs e)

    {

        // Code that runs when a session ends.

        // Note: The Session_End event is raised only when the sessionstate mode

        // is set to InProc in the Web.config file. If session mode is set to StateServer

        // or SQLServer, the event is not raised.

        Application.Lock();

        Application["OnlineUserCounter"] = Convert.ToInt32(Application["OnlineUserCounter"]) - 1;

        Application.UnLock();

    }

• In the design page (default.aspx) design the page as:

HTML Source Code:

<div>

    <fieldset style ="width:220px;">

    <legend>Count site visited and Online users</legend>   

        <asp:Label ID="lblSiteVisited" runat="server" Text=""

            style="color: #FFFFFF; background-color: #3366FF"></asp:Label><br />

        <asp:Label ID="lblOnlineUsers" runat="server" Text=""

            style="color: #FFFFFF; background-color: #009933"></asp:Label><br />

       

        <asp:Button ID="btnClearSesson" runat="server" Text="Clear Session"

            onclick="btnClearSesson_Click" />

        </fieldset>

        </div>

C#.Net code

• In the code behind file(default.aspx.cs) write the code as:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

    {

        lblSiteVisited.Text = "No of times site visited=" + Application["SiteVisitedCounter"].ToString();       

        lblOnlineUsers.Text = "No of users online on the site=" + Application["OnlineUserCounter"].ToString();

    }

    protected void btnClearSesson_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

    {

        Session.Abandon();

    }

Description: Application_Start event fires only once when very first user visit the site but Session_Start event fires as many times as many users visits the site and when session expires then Session_End event fires.

Note: Session doesn't expire on closing the browser. It expires in two ways. Either on time out (by default 20 minutes but it can be increased or decreased) or forcefully (e.g. using Session.Abandon()). On different browser session is also different.

Note: I have added a button "Clear Session" in this example. Actually there is no need of this button when this example will be live on the server. But to test it on our local server we need it to abandon the session so that you can see the variation in users online on the site.

Testing On local server: When you first run this example you will get No. of times site visited=1 and No. of users online on the site=1. Copy the Url from the browser and paste on another browser e.g. first run the website on Google chrome and copy the url from it and then paste it on Mozilla Firefox/ Internet Explorer etc. Now you will see No. of times site visited=2 and No. of users online on the site=2. 

Now click on the Clear Session Button of your example opened in the Google chrome. And refresh the Mozilla Firefox/ Internet explorer. You will see No. of times site visited=2 and No. of users online on the site=1.  It means one user's session got expired.

VB.Net Code

• Design the page same as described in the Source code section above but replace the line         <asp:Button ID="btnClearSesson" runat="server" Text="Clear Session"    onclick="btnClearSesson_Click" />

with

         <asp:Button ID="btnClearSesson" runat="server" Text="Clear Session" /> 

• Then In the code behind file(default.aspx.vb) write the code as:

Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load

        lblSiteVisited.Text = "No of times site visited=" & Application("SiteVisitedCounter").ToString()

        lblOnlineUsers.Text = "No of users online on the site=" & Application("OnlineUserCounter").ToString()

    End Sub

Protected Sub btnClearSesson_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnClearSesson.Click

        Session.Abandon()

    End Sub

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