# Is There A Way To Track Page Views In Real Time?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-track-page-views-in-real-time/713436>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 23, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-track-page-views-in-real-time/713436 "2015-02-23T18:54:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-track-page-views-in-real-time/713436/1 "2015-02-23T18:54:27Z")

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Is it possible to see how many page views a web page gets - for example, [this article](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1379/what-happened-to-the-emergency-broadcast-system) - without having access to the page’s code? Like some script of something that I can run that says “this page has x viewers since you last checked” or something?

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**Author:** ![Mithras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mithras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mithras)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2015, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-track-page-views-in-real-time/713436/2 "2015-02-23T19:05:35Z")

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No, you cannot do that without access to the server the site runs on or the network on which it sits.

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**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2015, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-track-page-views-in-real-time/713436/3 "2015-02-23T19:28:48Z")

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Any arbitrary website? No.

Your own website? You would need access to the code at least once, to add a script to the page (e.g. Google Analytics or a page counter). After that, you wouldn’t need to modify anything to check.

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**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-track-page-views-in-real-time/713436/4 "2015-02-24T00:12:36Z")

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Thanks. And yes, I meant any arbitrary website.