website question

[Pilgrim1099]

A friend of mine suggested using a web counter to count hits on my website and I thought that this trend has died out as a gimmick to show how popular your site is.

He suggested www.hitlinks.com but I thought it was a bit too much.

Are any of you aware of any other professional illustrators that use online counters or have they stopped using them these days as inaccurate tools? If they are hidden away from the public, would this make sense?

EDIT: trimming down the questions for simplification.

Your thoughts?

Thanks,

-Adam

[Mirana]

Visable link counters are a vanity, really. They aren't even acurate--they count reloads, your visits and you can start them at any number you want.

I suggest picking up a stat counter instead. It'll record things like referals, hardware, country of origin...basically let you know who your audience is and where your hits are coming from.

Google doesn't care about a counter, FYI. They rate pages by how many referals they have (at least last I checked).

[Pilgrim1099]

That's exactly what I thought. I knew the web counters have died out a while ago. Would stat counters be seen from 'behind the scenes' and viewed privately?

[CatConvention]

well your webhost should have something that shows how much traffic you get to your site.
accurate depending on your host.

[Mirana]

It depends on the company. Some are invisible (http://www.ritecounter.com/) and some require a link (http://extremetracking.com/). Search around and see what's right for you.

[Pilgrim1099]

Thanks! :)

[ploy]

You might check out Alexa and see your ranking on there. Not sure how dead on that is though.

[_Mario]

You might check out Alexa and see your ranking on there. Not sure how dead on that is though.

Alexa only has access to the data that people provide who use their tool-bar, and some other sources. It is not really accurate.

[CCThrom]

Try statcounter.com - It's pretty easy and free. I use it, not as a vanity thing... made it pretty unobtrusive... you could even make it completely invisible. Sure, there are plenty of ways in wich the data does not present a real picture, but what it does compile can be very useful. You know how many single hits vs repeat visits you get, visit duration, what links are taking people to your site, where they are located, etc.

I really like what statcounter does.