[Sigia-l] Site Counters - good or bad

[John O'Donovan]

Sean said:
> check your log files for stats or use hidden counters if you'd rather. a
> counter on the ui of a site is terribly unprofessional (in most cases).

Indeed. Generally visible counters on all but the most popular sites only
tell your visitors how few people are actually reading and can undermine the
value of your content...it's up there with having comments such as:

"This homepage was last updated on 12/11/1999"

When made invisible counters can offer some ability to capture information
without being overtly annoying...e.g.

http://www.web-stat.com/
http://www.theredtoolbox.com/

but this is not using them as a hit counter in the traditional "visual"
sense. Apart from the eBay scenario already mentioned, I can think of very
few reasons for wanting to display a counter.

Where you do not have access (or full control) over web logs people do use
them to track visitors though. Even in edu land...

http://www.fit.edu/acs/web/utilities/counter.htm

However not everyone likes being spied on...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1493152.stm

Not that we would ever want to spy on anyone of course...

I'm not saying you should use them but it would be useful to know how and
why you need to make this case and in what context...?

Cheers,

jod