Count On This One

I get this question from webmasters all the time.

"How do I get a counter on my webpage?"

In a regular commercial setup, you would have a programmer on staff who is conversant with CGI scripting or some other technique for keeping track of the number of hits (visitors) to your webpage.

How many of these programmers are at the typical school? Fortunately, there is a better and easier way. There are many sites on the Internet who will manage your counter for you. The index page of this newsletter features a counter set to "0" before it is uploaded to the webserver. As visitors come along, a signal is sent to the host for the counter and it is incremented by 1 for each visit.

The site that I use is http://www.beseen.com. It's a free service. When you visit the site, you take a look at a number of counter styles and colours, give your email address, provide a starting number for your counter and submit the the information to the server. The server then produces the code that will make the counter functional on your webpage and the code is emailed to you almost immediately. In my case, I have the counter sent to my First Class email account.

So, the code comes in and it's in the nerdy HTML format that gives computers a bad name!

Thanks for signing up for a BeSeen.com Hit Counter!

To use your new hit counter, simply cut and paste the code below into your web page using the editor of your choice.

<A HREF="http://www.beseen.com/hc-index.html">

<IMG SRC= "http://earth.beseen.com/hit.counter?account=doug_peterson@gecdsb.on.ca-jan99&font=GreenOnBlack&base=0" BORDER=0></A>

Note: Certain HTML editors will try to change the above code. You may find it easier to simply use a plain old text editor to enter the hit counter code.

If you ever want to change the style of your hit counter, get the code, or set up a hit counter for another page, visit our website, or go right to the hit counter page at: http://www.beseen.com/hitcounter.html

The only step left is to take the code and paste it into the web page. Highlight the text that was sent to you in the email message and copy it. If you are using Claris Homepage, select the HTML Source button . Your page will be displayed in all its raw HTML glory. Being careful not to change anything else, place your cursor at the appropriate position within your web page and paste it. Voila. The counter is in place. Save your webpage and take a look at your new counter in action!

You can even have your counter placed at different places within your website. Above, you'll see the same counter that is on the opening page. Mathematically speaking, I should get double the number of hits on the site this month!