Best method for keeping visitor count in database

[navaneeth kn]

One of our project is a content management system something like wikipedia. So I need to calculate the visitors count getting for each article. Each article in this will have a unique id. So I am looking for a best method to keep the visitor count in database.

I have a master table where article details are kept. I tried adding a column named "PageView" which will be updated each time the page is requested. This worked well when website gets very less traffic. But shows incorrect results when it's running on heavy traffic. I guess it's a row level locking issue. Is there any other better approach which can be used to keep the accurate visitor count ?

The work around which is in my mind is, putting a lock to the row when I select "PageView" for updating. Update the count and release the lock. If this is right, will the other select requests to the same row wait until the lock get released ?