Hit Counter - Is one really that important?

[Bern]

Well the question about a splash screen got such a great response I thought I'd pose the question.

What's your opinion of a hit counter on a web page? Is one really necessary and do you take notice of them if they appear on a site you are visiting?

 

[mad jew]

I never even look at them. On personal sites, they usually look ridiculous because they're so low. Wait, if I never look at them, how do I know they look ridiculous?

 

[dornoforpyros]

NO

don't do it, if you need to know the numbers look at your server logs.

Both of these practices (entry pages & hit counters) are very, very 1996

 

[bootedbear]

NO

Both of these practices (entry pages & hit counters) are very, very 1996

Thunder stolen! (Though I was going to say 1995).

 

[mnkeybsness]

Google Analytics is a much better and more comprehensive way to understand your visitors.

Hit counters are more of a novelty and usually only used by people who can't afford (though Google Analytics is free!) quality stats software or else used by those who have no idea what they are doing and just want to easily see how many times a page has been viewed.

 

[wordmunger]

A lot of blogs (including Cognitive Daily) use SiteMeter. It doesn't put a hit counter on the blog itself unless you want to, just an unobtrusive icon. It's a good way to get a sense of how popular a blog is, but it doesn't seem so much like "bragging" (or so pathetic, depending on how much traffic you get).

If you've got a reasonably popular site (more than 100 visits/day), it's not a bad idea to do something like that, to give new visitors a sense that your site gets a decent amount of traffic.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

On all the sites I design, I put a hit counter on the index page, but make it invisable, and then on an admin page I have it display the count.
Admin only, and mostly accurate. It gets the job done with a nice WYSISYG interface.

 

[dornoforpyros]

Thunder stolen! (Though I was going to say 1995).

If only the Blink tag still worked! I think Firefox still supports it actually hehe

 

[crees!]

A hit counter is so 1990's

I would recommend using Mint and installing numerous Peppers to track your visitors. Much nicer than a plain ol' hit counter and without Google looking over your shoulder Plus it comes with a Dashboard widget which is really cool.

PS - When you see "Update Available" in the widget, that was my idea
PPS - Before Mint was Reinvigorate.net which was AWESOME. Unfortunately it was whisked away by the Web Phantom.

 

[Dafke]

Google Analytics is a much better and more comprehensive way to understand your visitors.

Hit counters are more of a novelty and usually only used by people who can't afford (though Google Analytics is free!) quality stats software or else used by those who have no idea what they are doing and just want to easily see how many times a page has been viewed.

looks interesting, do you have invitations for this? i do have a gmail account, i can pm you my e-mail adress.

 

[Bern]

I have no intention of adding a hit counter to my or any other site. They're still pretty popular here with novice designers.

 

[mnkeybsness]

looks interesting, do you have invitations for this? i do have a gmail account, i can pm you my e-mail adress.

No, but you can invite yourself to Google Analytics. At the moment, they are very backed up and I doubt that invitations are being sent out very quickly.