Web counter - Definition and Overview

Web counters are (usually) numerical counters displayed on some Internet web pages. Once set up, these counters will be incremented one every time the web page is retrieved (viewed on a web browser).

Thus, a web counter will give some indication of the popularity of the web page it is displayed on. The date a web counter was set up or last reset should be given as well, otherwise it becomes impossible to estimate within what time the number of page loads counted occurred. Despite this, there are many pages that show web counters without giving a date. Web counters are more frequently encountered on personal, "homebrewn" web pages than for example corporate ones. As web design elements, they are not typically associated with the impression of "professional" or "serious" web design -- some people consider web counters to be a "gimmicky" feature. This might be due to their limitations, which include possible inaccuracy as regards determining the number of human visitors (due to page loads by bots). It might also be due to the fact that web counters are displayed to anybody viewing the web page in question. This is not strictly a limitation -- some web masters use web counters in order to show visitors how popular their page is -- but is a difference to server logs, which can also measure the popularity of web pages yet normally do not get displayed to page visitors. Web logs also frequently offer additional, more detailed and/or more accurate information than web counters. This is why many "professionally-minded" web masters vastly prefer relying on web logs over web counters for web site impact assessments. But for advertisement purposes are web counters better because of their "natural" behavior similar to ads content (banners). Especially if it is "side-effect" of larger dot based audience audit.