A web counter or hit counter is a publicly displayed running tally of the number of visits a webpage has received. Web counters are usually displayed as an inline digital image or in

plain text In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects (floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a limit ...

. Image rendering of digits may use a variety of

fonts In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a " sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

and styles, with a classic design imitating the wheels of an odometer. Web counters were often accompanied by the date it was set up or last reset, to provide more context to readers on how to interpret the number shown. Although initially a way to publicly showcase a site's popularity to its visitors, some early web counters were simply

web bug A web beaconAlso called web bug, tracking bug, tag, web tag, page tag, tracking pixel, pixel tag, 1×1 GIF, or clear GIF. is a technique used on web pages and email to unobtrusively (usually invisibly) allow checking that a user has accessed ...

s used by

webmaster A webmaster is a person responsible for maintaining one or more websites. The title may refer to web architects, web developers, site authors, website administrators, website owners, website coordinators, or website publishers. The duties of ...

s to track hits and included no visible on-page elements. Counters were popular in the 1990s, but were later replaced by other

web traffic Web traffic is the data sent and received by visitors to a website. Since the mid-1990s, web traffic has been the largest portion of Internet traffic. Sites monitor the incoming and outgoing traffic to see which parts or pages of their site are ...

measures such as self-hosted scripts like

Analog Analog or analogue may refer to: Computing and electronics * Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable ** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals *** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...

, and later on by remote systems that used

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, of ...

, like

Google Analytics Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand. Google launched the service in November 2005 after acquiring Urchin. As o ...

. These systems typically do not include on-page elements displaying the count. Thus, seeing a web counter on a modern web page is one example of

retrocomputing Retrocomputing is the use of older computer hardware and software in modern times. Retrocomputing is usually classed as a hobby and recreation rather than a practical application of technology; enthusiasts often collect rare and valuable hardw ...

on the Internet. Owing to their ubiquity, hit counters were also a useful tool to collect data on the global

usage share of web browsers The usage share of web browsers is the portion, often expressed as a percentage, of visitors to a group of web sites that use a particular web browser. Accuracy Measuring browser usage in the number of requests (page hits) made by each use ...

for a time.

Counter SEO schemes

In one

SEO Seo or SEO may refer to: * Search engine optimization, the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines Organisations * SEO Economic Research, a scientific institute * Spanish Ornithological Society (''Socied ...

spamming technique, companies paid to have their site listed in the HTML code of a free hit counter. When a webmaster put it on their page, a small link appeared at the bottom, providing a way for sites to artificially accumulate inbound links. This was often done by sites in very competitive industries like online gambling. In 2008,

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

removed a number of high-ranking

mesothelioma Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that develops from the thin layer of tissue that covers many of the internal organs (known as the mesothelium). The most common area affected is the lining of the lungs and chest wall. Less commonly the lining ...

sites that had been using counters from the top results.

References

External links

* {{dmoz, Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Hosted_Components_and_Services/Counters_and_Trackers/, Web counter Web software