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Vote Tracking For Web Polls
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WebsiteGear Web Polls provide multiple levels of voter tracking based on the membership plan selected. Tracking a voter starts with a cookie and IP address of the computer from which the user voted on the web poll. However, advanced tracking mechanism is possible for platinum members, where a custom data can be set to identify the voter.
Note that you have to set the "Poll Response Tracking" to "Enable Vote Tracking" to activate the vote tracking on any poll.
Cookie Tracking:
This is the lowest level of vote tracking. Enabling cookie tracking sets a cookie on the user's computer. The next time the user votes, the vote is rejected if the cookie exists. Cookie tracking is a feature for all levels of membership. The disadvantages of cookie tracking is that the user can delete the cookie and vote again. To enable cookie tracking, select "Enable Vote Tracking" for "Poll Response Tracking".
IP Tracking:
IP address is used to record the voter's computer. This feature is available for Gold and Platinum members only. Enabling this feature will prevent users to vote more than once if the voter's browser does not accept cookies or if the voter maliciously tries to vote again by deleting the cookie. IP tracking will work only if poll response tracking is set to 'Enable Vote Tracking'. If the user's browser accepts the cookie and the cookie is not deleted, the cookie tracking will automatically take precedence over IP tracking. To enable IP tracking, select "Enable Vote Tracking" for "Poll Response Tracking" and select "Enable IP Tracking" for "Advanced Response Tracking" for the poll.
In case of a proxy server, where all traffic from users within a company are routed via a proxy server, WebsiteGear tries to capture the computer IP address if provided by the firewall. Otherwise, the proxy server IP is captured. The disadvantage of this method is that multiple voters behind a proxy server will be unable to vote, if only the proxy server is identified by WebsiteGear, instead of the individual IP address of each computer.
Custom Identifier Field Tracking:
If you have information or want to collect information to identify the voter (e.g. email address or any unique ID generated by your system), the custom identifier field can be used to add an additional identifying data point. This field can be chosen to prevent duplicate votes instead of a cookie or IP.
This custom data is very helpful to track users and not be dependent on the limitations of the IP or cookie tracking. However, it may not be possible to identify a user for example when the web poll is open to the internet users. In that case, IP and cookie tracking is more appropriate.
For more information, visit http://poll.websitegear.com.
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