420 Design Blog
Those Pesky Website Counters
17 May 2005 | Angie H
Every once in a while a client will ask me to add one of those "hit counters" to their website. I usually convince them out of it. There just isn't any reason whatsoever to have one unless it's just for fun. I can hear some of you thinking, "But wait, how do I keep track of how many people are visiting my site?" Well, here goes...
Those counters are just that... counters. But they don't count unique visitors. They simply count how many times that page is accessed regardless of who it is, when it is, whether that person has visited before, etc. Let's use this site as an example. If you look in the bottom right corner there's a counter there. Now, reload/refresh your browser. Did the number go up by one? Yep, thought so. You can sit there and do that 50 times in one day but that doesn't mean 50 different people have visited that page, much less the site. The counter is basically a misleading component that doesn't do much of anything except count page refreshes. If you want to keep track of your visitors, your web host should provide site stats for your site as part of your hosting package. And if they do, chances are you get to see much more than just how many people are visiting your site. But that's a discussion for another time. :)
Technology, Web Design + Development