Design Tip:
Beyond Basic Hit Counters

by Larisa Thomason,
Senior Web Analyst,
NetMechanic, Inc.

Hit counters used to be a popular and easy way for webmasters to track the number of visitors to their site. Unfortunately, an "easy" method isn't always the most "useful" or "reliable" method. Hit counters are sometimes a good choice, if you understand how they work and find one that will give you the information you need about visitors.

Counting Visitors Isn't Enough

There's a good chance you've seen at least one hit counter - probably more. Basic ones are commonly displayed at the bottom of the page as a small graphic image that announces "You're visitor number 17,051 to this site!"

Webmasters use them for two main reasons:

• Track the number of site visitors.
• Show those visitors how popular the site is.

But the problems with those reasons are immediately evident. It would be terrific if your small, personal site had received 17,051 visitors, but that's peanuts to most large or even medium-sized online business sites. And what if you haven't had 17,000 visitors, but 170? Think about the message that number gives your visitors.

What Free Hit Counters Don't Tell You

A basic hit counter will tell you how many times your page has been requested, but you don't know if those were new visitors, returning visitors, or your best friend playing a practical joke by intentionally inflating your counter!

There's more that basic hit counters don't tell you:

• Where did your visitors come from?
• Do they look at other pages in your site?
• Can you track visitors' movements through the site?
• When do they leave the site?

If you want complete information about your visitors' origins and paths through your site, you'll need to do in-depth analysis of your site's server logs.

Visitor Tracking Services

Of course, depending on your Web host, you may not actually have access to raw server log data. Free hosting accounts and ultra-low-cost accounts usually just give you access to a summary - if they give you any information at all.

In those cases, a more advanced form of hit counter may be just what you need!

The basic hit counters are usually free services that require you to add a graphic image to your page. They count the number of hits, but that's all. For that limited service, they usually require you to put some sort of advertisement on your page that promotes their service.

More advanced services often call themselves "hit counters," even though they're actually offering visitor tracking services. You install an image (sometimes an invisible one), JavaScript code, CGI script, or something similar on your page.

Your tracking service uses that image or code snippet to collect and store information about your visitors on its own server. Think of them as providing remote hosting for your log files. So even if your Web host doesn't give you access to your own log files, you can still collect and analyze visitor data.

A quick search of the Web will show you a list of common remote tracking services. Many of the free accounts require the user to display a banner ad on their site. Paid accounts have no ad requirements and offer more analysis functions. Depending on your needs, there are many services that offer visitor tracking at different prices and service levels.

After you install a hit counter or tracking device, be sure to check the load time of your page. One of the big downsides of many free hit counters is an increase in page load time. Visitors assume it's your page that is slow in loading when the real culprit is a slow response from your hit counter's server because it's overloaded.

Since many visitors won't wait more than 10 seconds for your page to load, a slow-loading counter may drive visitors away from your site - leaving you with nobody to track. Don't know how fast your page loads? Use the load time checker in HTML Toolbox to check the download speed of your page. A good user experience starts with a fast loading page.