So you have a MySpace account, just like everyone else – the first thing you pretty much want to do with it is make it “unique”. You pull out a template and stick it on to your account. Except, you probably didn’t make the template, so someone else on the internet is probably using the same one, but nonetheless it works. Then someone goes and posts a bulletin about “MySpace Trackers” and how you can see who visited your website and when. All you have to do is post some code into your template or activate it or download something. But the real question is – does it work?

The simple answer is no – there is no accurate way of knowing who visited your page using a MySpace tracker, unless you employ some very tricky tactics (which I shall cover in the technical part of this post).

So what about all the claims of MySpace trackers and how they really work and so on? Most of the sites are made purely to obtain sensitive information, such as your MySpace username and password, and store it into a database. Some are made just for the purpose of spam (repost bulletins). Some can actually have some “tracking” ability, but nothing too complex, as I shall get to in the technical section. Some do all three.

How can you tell if a MySpace tracker is legitimate, at least with the minor tracking that it does? There are a couple of guidelines you may want to follow:
1. There is no innate ability with MySpace to track who has visited your profile – any site that says it can “activate” that feature is a fraud. These sites usually ask for your username and password to your MySpace account.
2. With other sites, never register with the same email and/or(preferably and) password that you have for your MySpace account. Or if asked for your email/profile ID, just don’t give the same password.

So, the Technical Part:
Here are the things you can track with a legit MySpace Tracker (or any kind of SiteCounter/Meter service) –
1. IP Address – the unique Internet Address that your ISP assigns to every computer (or if you have DSL/Cable, it assigns it to your router/modem). An example would be something like the one I have now: 65.103.130.10 (You can check yours here). IP addresses will change constantly unless you have a static IP address (which most people don’t), especially if you have dialup internet like AOL. This makes it somewhat harder to determine who is who when you’re trying to track them. This is probably the most useful piece of info but only if you know what to do with it. You can whois the IP address to see the ISP using DNSStuff which will give you the name of their ISP. Problem is that usually there’s only two good ISP’s in a certain city and everyone is using them. But it can be like 20 questions, it’ll narrow the list down a tiny bit (you have to know who is using what ISP as well). Then, there is a second tactic that’ll give you more precise info but will require more effort on your part. What you do is get a certain person to visit a certain page that only they can access. This includes messages, emails, and comments if the user requires comments to be previewed before they are posted. What you do is insert a different tracking code into a message or comment (I use different “invisible” images that are hosted on my server), check the IP address of the user once they load the image, and then compare that IP to the other IP’s of people who have visited your page. This is the best way to track someone, but it may be somewhat inaccurate just because:
   a. IP addresses change constantly
   b. 65.103.130.10 can be used by me for one day, and then given to someone else (reusable in a way, so a person can think that it’s me who’s accessing their site, but it isn’t)
   c. If the user is using a public terminal or Wi-Fi connection, their IP address will not be the same (unless they use it constantly, and still, it’ll be used by other people)
2. Browser Headers (Referrers) – Basically which page the user is coming from. Unfortunately, with most trackers, you’ll notice that most referrers come from your profile page because usually a tracker has you insert a code with an image or flash content. Each time the image or flash is loaded into a web browser, the server that is called to get the image records your IP address and your referrer (along with the time you accessed it and other info, depending on how good the tracker is). Since the image is on your page, when the browser asks for the image from the server, it sends the referrer information from the current URL it just came from – which technically is the page that you put the image on. With JavaScript counters, you can actually see what page they came from before that (if their browser is set to send referrer headers – most are), but MySpace does not allow JavaScript for good reason. The only thing you can get from the referrer then is just the user’s MySpace “MyToken” value – which serves absolutely no point in regards to tracking a person (it may be useful for something else besides a way for MySpace to store info in cookies, but no one has found it yet or never will). So the referrer is pretty useless.
3. The time the page was accessed/how many times it was accessed – It’ll give you info on how many times your page was loaded and when. You might be able to use this if you constantly look on your logs and compare the times your page was loaded to who was online on MySpace at the time it was loaded. Frankly, people can choose to turn off their “online” status in their profile, so you’d never know. And if two or more people are online at the same time, good luck trying to find out who it was.
4. Browser Type / OS – Are they using Firefox or Intercrap Explorer? Using Windows as an OS? How about Mac or Linux (on a sidenote, I recommend Ubuntu)? Again, you have to know who likes to use what.

SiteMeter/Counter/Tracker Services
» Site Meter – Great service, MySpace compatible, displays a button on your page.
» Stat Counter – Again, great service, needs to be tweaked a bit for MySpace, generally invisible tracker.
» Use your own server that will generate logs – IIS is included into most Windows XP Pro computers. Then there’s Apache that can be used for Linux as well as Windows.

Other MySpace tips
1. If I didn’t mention this a hundred times already – never give out your MySpace password! Or I guess you can if you want to, it’s your account, not mine.
2. You never have to repost bulletins to “activate” features. There is no way that “Tom” or whoever will track your bulletins.
3. Use common sense. If it’s too good to be true, then it probably is.

EDIT: Update
After further research, there are some sites that can track who visited your profile IF and only if both the person who is tracking you and the person being tracked are signed up for the same service that provides “specialized” myspace tracking. If you’re not part of the tracking site, you will just simply be labeled as “anonymous” to the person who is tracking you and you’re basically back to square one.