Free counters and web page counters, what you need to know!
Counting the visitors to your website is vital to the success of your online business, but there are a few pitfalls to beware of if you want to do it right! Most people, when they think of web counters immediately think of the standard "this page has been visited by 212 people since January 1996" or the counter which usefully displays "000000011"! While people with free pages who use a free counter to impress their dog that they have had a total of seven visitors to their page of holiday snaps can get away with using a free counter which appears on the page, don't do it! At least, not if you want to convince people that you are a genuine business operating in a business-like way on the Internet. I'll let you into a secret...if I want to find out whether a new contact I've just made is serious about his/her online presence I will check out their webpage and, if I find a counter, I will know that they are not serious online marketers. Ask yourself, how many real business sites on the web have a visible counter? The answer is none. A visible counter is one of the first things to disappear as people make the transition from "novice page maker" to "serious Internet marketer". To further illustrate my point, you will probably be aware that free counters are not actually free! I agree, you don't pay money for them, but you usually have to put an advert on your page next to the counter. Thus any visitors you receive could well be lured away by the advert which you display next to the 'free counter'. I guess by now you are probably a little confused. I said that counting the visitors to your website is vital to the success of your online business but then I explicitly argued against using a visible web counter. So what is my solution? Well, the answer lies in the word "visible". On the Scamfreezone I use a system which tracks visitors, the time they arrived, the page they came from and various other pieces of information without the visitor knowing I'm doing it. Quite simply, if the visitor views the images on a page they load an extra, transparent, image just one pixel wide by one pixel high. The image doesn't take long to load and the visitor doesn't even know it's there, but the data of the visitor is recorded by a 'tracking' company which lets me see my stats in real time. I therefore get all the information I need without displaying a webcounter for all to see! Incidentally, to understand your 'hits' properly, you need to know the difference between 'visitors', 'hits' and 'page views' which is explained in a separate article. If you want to use the service I use, visit Stattrax. You can sign up for a free two-week trial, but the full service costs a small fee. I find their service invaluable and recommend them highly. I have used their service for over a year. If you do decide to go with a free counter, here are links to the top four services, with the graphics you can expect to be displayed on your pages. 1: Easy Counter As I said, you will be giving your visitors the opportunity to leave your page which is never a good idea. Compare these counters to what your visitor sees with the Stattrax service... ...that's right, nothing! If you are familiar with CGI scripts, and know how to set them up, you can also analyse the access logs of your webserver. This is not a task for the beginner and requires a good knowledge of how to set up scripts and how to find your server logs, but if you are confident you know how to do it, you can find a script at: The script is freeware, so it's a cheap option if you know how to use it. Conclusion: Personally, I find the Stattrax service to be the best option. It works like an invisible counter, only requires you to paste a line of HTML into your webpages, gives great statistics and costs just $5 per month, or $50/year. The other options either involve you putting up free ads for someone else, or setting up CGI scripts to analyse your server logs...not for the faint hearted! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was written by Neil Shearing, webmaster at -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This page just one of hundreds in 'Internet Success Blueprint!', our world-class educational package containing tons and tons of hints, tips and information to get your business off to a flying start, no matter what budget you have! For more information, please click here |