Before you send us e-mail asking why your
counter doesn't work, please read this page first. Then, if you have a question about your counter not
working, please always provide your counter number along with the URL of the page you are having troubles
installing the counter on.
What you can expect from the HW counter's reliability and speed.
How Does The Counter Work
We're not a counter in the traditional sense. Those counters you see on some pages that say ...
You Are The 13056 Visitor To This Page
..... are doing nothing more than tallying a number. They take a number from
a file, add 1 to it and then replace the old number with the new one.
They then return the graphical image like the one above.
We on the other hand, act more like your own server's access logs.
Every hit you get on your pages is recorded in your server's access logs.
The who, what, where and when of what was accessed. This is why they're
called access logs. What we do is record this same information that your
access logs does but on our server instead. This is done through the
coding that we give you when you set up your counter account.
Why use our counter then if all the information is already on your own server?
Because many people don't have access to their access logs. Many providers don't
allow you to freely view these files because they contain information about other
users on your system and/or providers don't allow complex CGI programming on their
systems. With our counter, you don't have to know CGI, you don't have to understand
the inner-workings of your access logs. In fact, all you need to know is how to
cut and paste the coding we email you onto your web page.
Counter Hosting Policy
We reserve the right to remove our counters from pages we feel are not appropriately suited to be represented by our counter. This is a personal call by us that we do exercise. If we elect to remove a counter from service, the balance on the unused portion of a counter's balance will be refunded unless the removal was a result of the next policy item.
We will be upfront by letting you know that sexually explicit (nude graphics, explicit text) pages are not what we feel would be appropriate for our name to be represented with. If we remove a counter due to placement on XXX-rated pages, we will not refund any unused balance.
Prices are subject to change without notice. We will gladly refund the unused portion of a counter's balance due to price increases, if requested.
HW Counter Service is not responsible for loss of data. Every precaution has been taken to protect the integrity of your data. If a loss occurs to your counter's data within the current month, you will not be charged for that month.
Your statistics are your statistics. We won't publish, sell or whisper to anyone else your business. If you want others to view your statistics, then that is your business and not ours.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some answers to some good questions asked and answered.
Q: How come I can't see the number of hits being displayed on my pages?
A: Displaying of total hits on your pages only works on pages with light backgrounds. If you
have a dark background image and/or your BGCOLOR is set to a dark color, the total hits may not display
properly on your page.
Q: How can I display hits for today only without having to always click today's date?
A: When viewing your statistics, you can add a parameter to the URL that will tell the
counter to display only hits for "today". After your "password" add &date=today.
Replace xxxxxxxxx with your counter number and password with your counter's
password.
Q: What does Hiding of Hits mean?
A: Mostly likely, you the web manager, will rack up a few hits on your own pages while writing them.
By hiding hits, you are not displaying those occurrences coming from your IP address. An IP address is a unique identification
of the on-ramp you're using to access the Internet. If you're going through a provider the IP Address may change each time you
log online. But there are certain elements of the IP address that won't change for you. As an example, right now I am
pm9-20.pacificnet.net but if I logged off and logged back on, I could be pm8-10.pacificnet.net where only the first group of the
IP identification has changed.
When you hide your hits, you enter the portion of the IP address that doesn't change (pacificnet.net) in your counter's account setup and then those
occurrences that contain that IP addressing will not be included when you view your statistics. This is not an exact
method of filtering out your hits. If you hide your hits, you are basically blocking your entire provider and it's customers.
Q: Why does the counter icon appear broken and no hits are being recorded
A: My first response would be to ask if you're using FrontPage, Netscape HTML Editor or another WYSIWYG HTML editing program?
If so, you may need to add this code with a text editor. Your HTML editor may be corrupting the code.
Q: Even though I have placed the coding on all my pages, why does my statistics only show one page receiving hits?
A: This is a common occurrence. Each page you want to track hits for must be setup first through the "Add/Change Web Page" function
located under the [More] menu option. When you set a page up, it's assigned the next logical number in sequence to other pages established. This
sequential number appears after your counter number separated by a (.) period. So your first page (which is generally index.html) would be .1 and
the second page you setup is .2 and the third page is .3 and so on. It's very important that this is what is reflected on the page that is assigned
to that number. The counter coding emailed to you specifies the page and it's specific coding that is to placed on that page alone.
Q: What's does "archived hits" mean and how does that affect my counter totals?
A: Archiving your hits doesn't affect your totals at all. You have 2 different sets of counter statistical screens. One
is called "Historical Data" and then you have your regular statistical screens. The ONLY difference between the two is that you
don't have the capability to filter data in your historical screens.
When we record your hits your counter log will look like this:
Each hit has the date, day of week, time of day, page, visitor, referred link and browser information stored together on the same line. As you can see
the page http://207.171.0.230/index.html appears on 3 of the 4 hits.
Now with archived hits the data is separated into 5 different logs and each log will have the totals for the above information stored instead. Here's
the archived page hits ....
The entire log for the archived pages is only 6 lines big. Next to each page is a number. This is the totals for that page. As you can see, it
takes less space to record http://207.171.0.230/index.html as having 7126 hits in the archived logs than it is to list the page 7126 times
in the regular counter logs.
Now before you totally get confused here ...
The reason we archive data is because your counter logs would eventually become too large to manage. At the
end of each month, we take all your counter's hits for that month and archive them into the month-to-month archives.
Then we clear your current logs and start from scratch. In the process, you don't lose your counter's data nor the
number of hits displayed. The hits are only moved to a more cost-effective and manageable set of logs.
Q: I have a web site with four pages. I would like all the different pages to have separate statistics. How should I proceed?
A: Depends! You can filter your pages at your statistics [Page] by
clicking on the green filter ball. Then only those pages will be displayed or filtered.
This allows you to track all your pages together but gives you the ability to view only
specific page stats. This is the best way of tracking individual pages within a site
while being able to view your entire site's activity. Otherwise, I would say yes,
create a different counter for each.
Q: My question is about privacy. I do not want anyone else to be able to read them by clicking your icon or any other way
A: There are 2 ways to do this. First and easiest way is to remove
the <A HREF="http://www.hwcounter.com/cgi-bin/pages.cgi?YOURCOUNTERNUMBER">
coding. Be careful not to remove the counter coding from within your <IMG...
coding. Your counter number may appear in 2 places within your counter coding.
The counter number is only required within the <IMG coding.
See the section entitle Counter Technical Guide below for how the counter coding is structured.
The other method of making your statistics private is go to your UPDATE COUNTER ACCOUNT
form (follow the [More] menu bar link on your statistical pages) and check the
Block Statistics Viewing areas you require your password to be used in the URL to view your statistics.
Q: Why are there FILE:// entries in my Referral Statistics?
A: Ah yes, this is the entry you actually want to see the most
often. This is because they are coming to you from their bookmarks. One measure
of a good site isn't necessarily how many you can get to come to your site,
but how many you can get to come back. When you see FILE:// in your referrals
this tells you that you have captured the highest rating someone can bestow
on you .... their bookmark!
Q: When I go to "Add/Change Web Page", so that I can add a page, it doesn't show up on my statitics?
A: We don't track pages you set up. We only track them at the time you
actually receive a hit on them. The pages listed in the "Add/Change Web Page" are
your pages that you have installed your counter on and have received at least one hit.
Q: How come I don't see any text based browsers in my browser statistics.
A: Because we didn't record their hit. Bummer! Text based browsers and people who have
their browser's auto-load option turned off will not record a hit in your statistics. This is true
with digits.com, internet-audit and us. The reason is because we utilize the <img src ... tagging
to operate the counter program without using Server Side Includes. If they aren't capable of viewing
images or don't want to view images, we never get the request to process the hit.
Q: How come my [Visitor] statistics doesn't show my visitor's email addresses?
A: There is only one way to capture the email addresses of someone who visits your site. And
there are 2 requirements to do this. First, you need a javascript routine on your page. Secondly,
your visitor must be using the Netscape 2.0 browser version.
Q: Where did my hits go? My hits were archived without my knowledge.
A: The counter system automatically archives your hits after your counter logs
reaches a megabyte in size which is approximately 7,000 hits. Your [Page] and [Date] statistics
will automatically be archived and can be accessed by selecting the [View Historical Data] links
on both the [Page] and [Date] statistics. At one time we allowed the counter customer to make the
decision when their hits would be archived but found that few would. This resulted in some counter
logs being over 100 megs in size and would create situations that stalled the server trying to
sort 700,000 hits at one time. It is for that reason that we implemented the automatic archiving
feature.
If you wish to have additional information about your hits archived, you need to select "Update
Counter Account" under the [More] menu option and check those areas you wish to save data for.
There is a nominal charge for storage of additional information. Maintaining historical data for
both your pages and dates are part of the service at no additional cost.
A suggestion so that you don't have your hits archived in the middle of a month would be
to archive your hits manually at the end of each month. Again, when you receive approx 7,000+
hits, you can expect your logs to be archived.
Q: How do I hide the counter icon so others don't see it on my page?
A: There are several ways to do this. The easiest method is to use
BORDER=0 WIDTH=0 HEIGHT=0 within the <IMG> tag. This doesn't seem to work however
for those viewing your pages with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. So an alternative
is to use your own graphic image.
To guarantee the hiding of counter's coding you can either create a blank transparent icon or
use a different graphic that's already appearing on your page, such as the email icon. Under the [More]
menu option above, select "Add/Change Web Pages (Customizable Counter Icon Display)" which allows
you to specify the URL of the graphic to be loaded. You'll be provided the proper HTML coding for
your page(s) upon submitting the URL.
Q: My email address has changed. How do I change my email address for my counter?
A: Contact us by emailing us with
your counter number, password and the change from and change to email address. We'll change it
and then notify you via email when it's done.
Q: How do I change the pages in my statistics to match my new site where my pages are being moved?
A: Select "Add/Change Web Pages (Default Counter Icon Display)" under the [More] menu option above.
You can change page URLs by selecting and re-entering the new URL. Instructions are provided there.
Q: I'm no longer using the counter service. How do I unsubscribe?
A: Simple, just remove the counter coding from your page(s). The counter will automatically
purge your counter logs after not receiving a hit within 15 days. We maintain your counter's account
balance forever so if you decide to rejoin at a later date and you have funds on account, remember your
old counter account number and we can transfer any balance you have to your new one.
Q: When viewing my [Links], how come I don't see other sites linked to me?
A: To be able to see what sites are linked to you, whether reciprocal or from search engines,
you need to use the SSI version of HTML counter coding. The counter coding using
SSI should have been emailed to you when setting up your page(s). The next section
below (Counter Technical Guide) explains how to implement the SSI coding on your page.
Q: Why do I always get the message: Network error: connection reset by peer.
A: This is a problem that has nothing to do with the counter service but easy to correct.
Close your browser program and delete the cookies.txt file which resides in your browser's
directory. It seems that corrupted cookies.txt files have an effect on accessing certain areas of
your statistics.
Counter Technical Guide
All pages for your counter must be set up using the "Add/Change Web Pages" option.
One of the biggest problems people have in setting up their counters is
that they are writing the code for the counter without going through our
setup form. The MAIN purpose for the setup forms is to do the coding for
you. Our counter is not just recording hits. It's recording various elements
for each hit you get. Because are counter provides more statistics for each
hit, the coding is a bit more complicated than other counters. You should use
the setup forms for the first couple of pages, become familiar with the
transactions occurring before making any modifications to your counter coding.
I guarantee that if you haven't read the entire implementation
and troubleshooting instructions and you are not an experienced web page developer,
you will encounter problems. I am spending most of my time now helping others
getting their counters to work instead of making improvements to the counter's code.
Some of the problems occurring are people putting http//: in their URL's
instead of http:// .... which should be a basic elementary requirement in putting
a web page online to begin with.
Now, with that said and done .....
First let me explain what the HTML coding means. Having an understanding of what
each element does in recording your hits should help you in troubleshooting the counter.
In ALL examples below, the use of 123456789 should be replaced with your counter number.
There are 4 different HTML codes with each performing a different function.
HTML Coding with Icon Linked to your HW Counter Statistics.
This code option will display the counter icon on your page and links to your Counter statistic pages. This option would be used if you want your visitors to view your hit statistics.
HTML Coding with Icon Linked to the HW Counter Introduction Page.
This code option will display the counter icon on your page and links to the HW Counter introduction page and not to your counter statistics.
Icon Linked to your Counter Statistics and using SSI to track links to you.
This code option will display the counter icon on your page and links to your Counter statistic pages. This option would be used if you want your visitors to view your hit statistics. Additionally, this option (only SSI supported pages will work) records which links your visitors had accessed your pages from. This is a good way to find what sites are linked to yours.
Icon Linked to the Counter Intro Pages and using SSI to track links to you.
This code option will display the counter icon on your page and links to the HW Counter introduction page and not to your counter statistics. Additionally, this option (only SSI supported pages will work) records which links your visitors had accessed your pages from. This is a good way to find what sites are linked to yours.
There are 2 different sections in the HTML coding:
<A HREF= ..... </A> is the linking portion to your counter statistics.
<IMG SRC= ..... is the hit recording portion of the coding.
The first 2 codings below are the only available variations of linking the icon to the HW Counter. One
of the two choices must appear in the coding. This coding will appear at the beginning of your coding and
one of the 2 choices must appear in your code.
<A HREF="http://www.hwcounter.com/index.html">
For those not wishing to link directly to their stats, this coding links to our counter
introduction pages. This much of the coding is required at a minimum.
This coding links the icon directly to your statistics pages. The number
after pages.cgi? is yourcounter number that the icon is linked too. New
accounts should obtain a number first and not use the 123456789 number displayed.
The next part is the portion of the counter coding that records your hits.
This portion denotes the URL you entered when "Adding/Changing Web Pages". Each time you enter a new URL
to be tracked, it's assigned the next logical number. So the second page you enter in the "Adding/Changing Web Pages" function
will have the designation of .2 and the third page entered will be designated as .3 and so on.
This portion of the coding is optional and should only be used if you have Server Side Include (SSI) capabilities. You can record what web site was linked to your page and records the URL of the page linked to you. It's very very important that you have SSI capabilities for this to work and that you have made the page hosting this coding executable with chmod a+x page.html (if Unix).
Here are examples of the 4 possible HTML codings. We've used the counter coding for the FAQ for illustration.
HTML Coding with Icon Linked to your HW Counter Statistics.
Because some sites are being hosted on servers that don't support
server side includes (SSI), you'll need to use javascript on your pages instead
if you want to track where your hits are coming from. The drawback to using
javascript coding is that some browsers don't support javascript and/or some
people have javascript turned off in their browsers. But this is very few so
the benefit of tracking where your hits are coming from may outweigh the
accurate tracking of the number of hits you're receiving.
NOTE! The javascript coding should only be used by those whose servers do not allow Server Side Includes.
If you're not sure if your server supports SSI, contact your server's system administrator who is the one you
pay the bucks to host your site.
The javascript counter coding must be formatted as follows and can be placed anywhere in the body of
your HTML page. Be sure to replace the example 123456789.1 counter number with your own.
<!-- BEGIN HWCOUNTER TAG -->
<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
document.writeln('<img src="http://www.hwcounter.com/cgi-bin/counter.cgi?123456789.1&'+document.referrer+'"></A>');
// -->
</script>
<noscript>
<img src="http://www.hwcounter.com/cgi-bin/counter.cgi?123456789.1" alt="HWCounter.com">
</noscript>
<!-- END HWCOUNTER TAG -->
And that's all that's needed to use javascript coding on your pages to track where your hits are coming from.
IMPORTANT! If you're using the javascript coding, DO NOT put the
regular counter coding on your pages. The html between the <noscript> and </noscript>
tags run the counter if the user doesn't have javascript enabled.
Counter Placement Recommendation
Some animated graphics causes a page to slow down in loading.
They put the page into perpetual load mode. Because of this your counters
may not be able to load. We recommend that you place the HW counter
icon down near your copyright, however, if you are using animated graphics,
you might want to consider placing the HW counter icon
before those graphics to accurately record your hits.
Another recommendation for all counter programs (internet-audit, digits
and HWCounter) is that you make sure the WIDTH= and HEIGHT= attributes are
used within these counters. Otherwise your page may stall waiting for the
counters to return their image values. Using the WIDTH= HEIGHT= attributes
will allow the page to load it's text first and then retrieve the image
values. Remember that counters are retrievable by use of the HTML image
tag and should be treated as such in your HTML layout.
Counter Number Not Displaying Properly
If you see the following on your web page .....
Email Us with your counter
number and we can fix it immediately.
Counter Accessibility and Speed
As with any server, we have our peak traffic times
which will slow traffic. Peak times usually occur between the hours of 9:00am -
12:00pm (Eastern Standard Time). We are monitoring the counter constantly for
accessibility and speed. We will be making appropriate adjustments to the counter
software adjusting for accessibility accordingly. When we make adjustments to the
software and place it online, there will be a few seconds during this transfer that
the counter may not work and you will receive a broken image icon. This should only
be a very temporary and rare occurrence.
Additionally, as with any server, there are times when we may not be
able to be accessed to due server problems. If you receive a broken image icon
consistently for more than 24 hours, please contact us immediately at
webmaster@hwcounter.com
