Visitor Counters

[Neil B]

Can anyone give me any tips on how to implement a visitor counter to my site please?
Are there any pitfalls?
Is it worth it?
Is there a way of looking behind the scenes for this figure instead of having an on-screen counter?

Thanks

Neil B
www.*******.co.uk

[Grove]

I wasn't able to access the site you have linked but it really depends if it is worth having a counter. I personally despise counters as they create another hole for potential hackers to gain access to server settings and even worse private details (bank accounts etc.)

I refrain from using them all but there are numerous ones available. It really depends what your site is referring to and whether you really need one. Not just because you saw a random blog have one.

[Neil B]

Thanks Grove
Strange that you couldn't access the site - I've just tried it & it's okay.

Anyway, you have a good point there - do we really need one?
As the site develops and we set up shopping carts et al for Jan's paintings, we thought it may be useful to know what traffic there is, but the point about holes for hackers is gratefully recieved.

Neil B

www.*****.co.uk

[Grove]

I'm stuck on loading here. Maybe I ought to try it with IE

Anyway, if you are creating a shopping cart where users have to enter their Credit Card details etc. I would stay away from Counters. They can compromise the security.

Also is not the number of transactions a week the number your really after?

[Neil B]

Thanks again Grove
I accept your advice - so a big thank you.

I'm worried though that you can't access the site - it's been on this domain for over a week now and yes, we're using IE - not sure what you're using.
I'm new to all of this anyway so I can't think what the problem can be.
Not sure what you are using either - Houston, do I have a problem?

Can anyone help and let me know if you can access it please? I know that friends in Germany have been looking at it recently (baffled)

Neil B

www.*******.co.uk

[DJ-Zep]

It's fine over here.

Check if you webhost supplies you with free stats so that you don't have to waste time implementing a counter into your site.

[Neil B]

Thanks DJ-Zep for checking for me. Grove must be the one with the problem.

And thanks for the tips re the stats and visitor counter - I think I'll pass on having one anyway having read the tips and advice.

Neil B

[Grove]

All good now. Seems to work. Must be something on my end.

[rabidjade]

Counters and hackers? The counter on my web site is a very basic, free html utility that is about as basic as they can get. I don't see how someone could hack it for my banking information.

[devil lady]

I use http://statcounter.com/ its free, easy to implement the script into your pages and it will tell you how many visitors, which country, what search engine they used to get there and a lot more. You'd only need it on your main pages and not in the cart area.
You can choose the invisible one rather than a counter on the page. That way you can get a lot uf useful statistics on how the site is going, most popular pages etc.

[1 g0t 0wn3d]

I can see it well to (looks good)

[rabidjade]

I like the statcounter. Does this only work for one web page per account or can you monitor a whole web site and it's pages with one account? I currently use http://extremetracking.com/ but they only have one account per page and it would be a waste to open up several accounts to keep track of one site.

[KoosHopeloos]

@ rabidjade: take a look here (http://tellertest.com/en/), they provide a very good overview of many counters. I myself use Onestat & Statcounter and I have a counter (http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/) on the server of my website which tells me everything about which page is accessed.

[devil lady]

Statcounter will work on every page from one account. You just have to insert the code on each page. This way you can see which pages are most popular etc

[rabidjade]

At the moment I use webalizer as a plugin for WAMP5 but the way my site is laid our it doesn't do me much good. It reads EVERY file accessed and doesn't allow any "disallows" so it even counts local host or my visits on the same network.

[devil lady]

Statcounter will not count your own visits. As long as you set it up right and put your ip address during their setup pages in you'll only count visitors.