Forum Moderators: phranque
Goodluck
An hit counter will only provide numbers. Those numbers are unreliable. Some hit counters will provide all hits and others will provide unique.
Can I suggest you look at stats instead.
If you can't get online stats and can get to the log files you might try looking at webalizer or funnel-web or one of the many other packages. You can always load the resulting pages onto the server for your client to look at.
Hope this helps.
They tell the whole world ...including competitors that someone, somewhere is clicking on your site.
The counter is an anonymous number. It means nothing, can be faked, and worst of all it has no character. Did this hit come from a visitor? A search engine? A spammer? You, or the customer? Did it come from a search engine or from someone directly typing in the URL? Is this a return visitor, or the same person reloading pages?
You can't know the answers to these from a hit counter. It doesn't hold this info. Your customer will begin to ask why sales are down, who's actually visiting, what search engines are working for you, and there is only one answer to this: stats.
Stats show where the traffic's coming from (search.google.com or direct request, in which someone enters the URL directly and not via a link, for example) whether it's unique (unique visits) where they get in, and where they leave (entry and exit pages.) It breaks to down by month, day, and hour. What pages are visited most, and what pages arenever visited at all. What search keywords bring them to your site.
Over time this reveals what's working and not working on your site, when the best time to push out specials or do maintenance is, and more importantly what ad programs are working for you. All of this barely scratches the gold mine to be found in your domain's stats over time.
And here's the best part: on almost any host, stats are free. No work, no nothing, ask them to set them up, go to the URL. Done deal.
And now for my opinion :-) (which should have little bearing.) Counters fall into the Stupid Web Tricks category along with animations and pop-ups. Everyone's doing it, anyone can, but you shouldn't because it chepens your hard work.
That's why you should use stats and not a counter. :-)
I agree there are few free counter+stats solutions to be as good as the free awstats script.
Ah, one more thing: a counter IS able to record exit links where a server stats is not. Viceversa, a counter does not record acurate info related to robots, so you need the stats also.
We're talking about a digital image that increases in number when the site is hit?
All you can see is a group of numbers.
We are talking about a hit counter. A line of code with a graphic that counts hits...nothing more.
Two totally different things.
Exactly. You never know what a visitor may consider a "successful" number. For one person, they may see 1000 people and be impressed. Another may not be if the number is below 1 million. Hit counters mean nothing, can actually deter customers and serve no solid or worthy purpose.
My advice would be to try and convey this to your clients and let them know that you can give them access to a simple "behind the scenes" stats program instead. Then, if they still want the hit counter, at least you can sleep. ;-)
