I know what you mean, dcortez.
We show 1st page raws and uniques, and it's usually a very close count. I think normal browsing is +/- 3% referrer loss (before things like nortons etc. that are made to hide referring url came around).
This is a mess, but if you create count.txt with a zero in it, then save and upload and chmod to 666 in the same location as the php itself, it should increment a counter then jump to your sponsor code.
Code:
<?
$filename='count.txt';
ignore_user_abort(true);
$handle=fopen($filename,'r+');
$content=fread($handle,filesize($filename));
$content++;
rewind($handle);
fwrite($handle,$content);
fclose($handle);
ignore_user_abort(false);
Header("Location: http://your_sponsor_link_goes_here");
?>
Someone who actually knows PHP can fix it up as you please. It was all I needed so cobbled it together, lol.
BTW: issues like this are why we dont rely on cookies. They are client side, and vulnerable.