Editing Web counter

{{short description|Web page hit count indicator}}
{{more citations needed|date=November 2008}}

A '''web counter''' or '''hit counter''' is a publicly displayed running tally of the number of visits a [[webpage]] has received.

Web counters are usually displayed as an [[digital image|inline digital image]] or in [[plain text]]. [[Rendering (computer graphics)|Image rendering]] of digits may use a variety of [[fonts]] and styles, with a classic design imitating the wheels of an [[odometer]]. Web counters were often accompanied by the date it was set up or last reset, to provide more context to readers on how to interpret the number shown. Although initially a way to publicly showcase a site's popularity to its visitors, some early web counters were simply [[web bug]]s used by [[webmaster]]s to track hits and included no visible on-page elements.

Counters were popular in the 1990s, but were later replaced by other [[web traffic]] measures such as self-hosted scripts like [[Analog (program)|Analog]], and later on by remote systems that used [[JavaScript]], like [[Google Analytics]]. These systems typically do not include on-page elements displaying the count. Thus, seeing a web counter on a modern web page is one example of [[retrocomputing]] on the Internet.

Owing to their ubiquity, hit counters were also a useful tool to collect data on the global [[usage share of web browsers]] for a time.

== Counter SEO schemes ==

In one [[search engine optimization]] spamming technique, companies paid to have their site listed in the HTML code of a free hit counter. When a webmaster put it on their page, a small link appeared at the bottom, providing a way for sites to artificially accumulate inbound links. This was often done by sites in very competitive industries like online gambling. In 2008, [[Google]] removed a number of high-ranking [[mesothelioma]] sites that had been using counters from the top results.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://blogs.perficient.com/2008/06/16/matt-cutts-interviewed-by-eric-enge/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080722162925/http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts-061608.shtml |title=Matt Cutts Interviewed by Eric Enge |date=June 16, 2008 |archive-date=July 22, 2008 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{failed verification|date=February 2022|reason=The interview identifies links to "mesothelioma, payday loans site, or something like that" hidden in a web counter as an example of "widgetbait" link spam but says nothing about any removals.}}

== References ==

{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
{{Portal|Internet}}

[[Category:Web software]]