Web Design
Web Counters
Gathering statistics about your Web site's usage can be helpful in determining its success. Server logs, although they contain a great deal of information, are cumbersome to work with and can be difficult to decipher.
Web Counters: The Simple Solution
Web counters provide basic Web site activity information to visitors and Webmasters alike. A Web counter is a snippet of code that interacts with a program on the server to track activity on a Web page. Web counters vary in complexity, from simply counting the number of hits a Web page receives to logging information about visitors--including how they got to your Web page and which browsers they are using.
GCount
GCount is a powerful graphical Web counter available to all Web-ster customers. GCount can be customized to meet the specific needs of your Web site and is capable of providing detailed information about each hit your counter receives. A small amount of HTML coding is necessary to implement GCount and make full use of its features.
The following information will help you get started using GCount:
Getting Started
GCount uses a dynamic URL as the source of an image tag <IMG>. This produces an image displaying the number of recorded hits, based on the parameters you pass in via the URL. One advantage to using GCount above other comparable counters is its ability to prevent recording of multiple hits from the same visitor. This feature helps GCount provide more accurate feedback about your Web site.
Available Options:
log: If you want to utilize the full power of GCount, you will need to add log=1 to the string of arguments in your source URL. When log is activated, detailed information including the visitor's browser, domain, operating system, and referring URL will be made available for your review. If log is not used, GCount operates simply as a counter and does not provide any detailed information.
typeface: The typeface argument is used to identify which style of counter you wish to use. See a full list of available typefaces.
digits: When you specify the number of digits, you are restricting GCount's display to a particular string of numbers. For example, if you set the digits of your counter to 10 (digits=10), and your counter records 560 hits, the counter displays 0000000560 (a padding of seven zeros to offset the three digits recorded).
name: This is the first and most important argument you will use. The name argument assigns a unique name for your counter so that your counter's hits are recorded separately from anyone else's. This attribute can help you isolate specific pages or sections of your Web site into separate reports so that you can monitor page popularity, usage statistics, or any other benefit you can dream up.
number: You can force GCount to display a specific number rather than display the actual value of your recorded hits.
visitlimit: This is a more advanced option that allows you to control the amount of time (in minutes) a visitor must spend at the page in order for the visit to be stored as a session. The visitlimit setting can help prevent frequent hits by the same person--for example, from a visitor rapidly hitting the Refresh button in the browser--from registering as multiple hits on the counter.