Hit It Every Time: Selecting
Hit Counters for Your Web Pages
When I take my 4-year old
daughter to carnivals, we both marvel at the ability of carnival
workers to hit the target every time they throw the ball. It's
a skill we both admire, respect and, sometimes, I ask myself,
what's the trick? Like the carnies, I wondered for a long time
how to add hit counters to my web page. Hit counters on the web
allow webspinners to keep track of how many people visit their
web page or site. Sometimes, I like to think of webspinners as
carnival game operators vying for the attention of passersby.
While web pages aren't at the point yet of collecting dollars
for the chance to visit, the analogy of webspinners as carnival
game operators still works for me. If you're asking yourself,
what's the trick to selecting hit counters for your web page,
then this article is for you.
Using Microsoft FrontPage 98 or 1.0, you can easily incorporate
hit counters into every web page you create. But, what if your
web page isn't in FrontPage? Adding counters to database web pages
is another matter because the pages are not administered with
FrontPage. While some folks have CGI (Common Gateway Interface)
scripting experience, I can count on one hand the people at my
place of work that can do this easily--and, I'm not one of them.
So, I have to turn to hit counter services available on the web
that I can use. Many Web sites use counters to show visitors how
many times a page has been visited. Here are several FREE hit
counter services that you can use available via the Web. The process
for placing a hit counter on your page is simple. The steps are:
- Select a hit counter service provider.
- Read the terms carefully for the service provider. After
signing up, you will receive via email or you can copy-n-paste
the HTML code from the web page screen.
- Paste the HTML code that the hit counter service provider
gives you at the point on your web page where you want the
counter to appear.
While there are only three steps, the hardest point isn't the
pasting HTML code into your page--it is selecting a hit counter
service provider. Most of the hit counter services featured here
will ask you to provide some basic contact information, a password,
and then give some HTML code that you can insert (copy-n-paste)
at the point the item is needed on the web page.
WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN SELECTING A HIT COUNTER PROVIDER
There are several factors in considering which hit counter to
use. Besides the most obvious factor--cost--other factors include:
- Speed of the hit counter: Many hit counters can cause a noticeable
lag time in the load time in most browsers. This is due to a
variety of reasons, however, the main one being that the service
provided is just slow.
- Obtrusiveness of the hit counter on your page: Some hit counters
feature large graphics as well as advertisement that may not
suit your particular web site. For example, take a look at these:
Notice how the graphic shown
below is more advertising than counter:
Source: http://www.easycounter.com/
Notice how the graphic shown below might be
considered inappropriate for a professional site:
Source: http://www.aaddzz.com/pages/counters
- Available
reports on number of hits: Different hit counter services
provide reports with differing information on a daily, weekly
basis. These reports can show information such as what part
of the country your visitors come from, what size screen they
have, and other useful information. A sample report from : http://www.aaddzz.com/pages/counters
is shown below:
Another example:
| Source:
http://www.cyberspear.com/html_tools/cgi_scripts/rbt.cgi
Sun Feb 8 10:46:48 169.132.73.39
Sun Feb 8 10:46:51 206.301.24.75
Sun Feb 8 10:46:54 169.132.73.39
Sun Feb 8 10:47:11 209.52.35.96
Sun Feb 8 10:47:13 153.283.23.35
Sun Feb 8 10:47:25 206.301.24.75
|
Shows
date, time, and IP address of the visitor.
Shows total hits for any web page since the last reset
for that web
page.
Displays hit count for each web page for the visitor
to see.
|
- Rules involving
advertising piggybacking on the counter. Some
providers of HIT counters have rules that involve advertising
or other restrictions. For example, take a look at PageCounts
rules for obtaining a free hit counter for your web page:
As you can see, these four factors can definitely
influence how your web site looks and what remarks may be made
on the graphics or advertisement used by free web page hit counters.
That is why my favorite counter is FastCounter. As you can see
below, the actual footprint of the counter on your page is small,
and the reporting options are excellent:
If you have a web site hosted
by an Internet Service Provider, they will usually have specific
instructions on how to include hit counters on your web pages.
You can usually call your ISP and find out more about the HTML
code that will need to appear on your page. A sample bit of code
following this approach is shown below:
<img src="/cgi-bin/newcount?userloginname&width=5&font=digital">
As I wrote earlier, selecting a hit counter provider
is the difficult first step. After that, you can count on reliable
service and having an indicator of the popularity of your web
page. Certainly, it's nice to know how many visitors I have had
to web pages I've placed online. It makes web use reporting a
lot easier to administrators, as well as others. And, as carnival
game operators at the great CyberCarnival, isn't it nice to know
how to keep track of how many passerby drop by for a game?
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