Hit counters? …or “miss-counters?”

[box type=”note” border=”full”]The takeaway: Why you shouldn’t install hit counters on your website.[/box]

A client recently asked me about adding a hit counter to his website so he could track the number of visitors. I felt compelled to tell him what I thought of such devices. And I’ll share my opinion with you also about why I think they add no value to a website. And what you should have instead.

First, an explanation of what I mean by “hit counter.” You’ve seen those counters at the bottom of the pages on older websites. They’re often styled to look the digits of the odometer on your old car. They were considered cool and thought to be useful by amateur web designers.

Hit counters are counter-productive!

Why they are “counter-productive”

Hit counters supposedly gave you the total number of times that a page was viewed. However, the numbers displayed by these hit counters were always inflated and meaningless. I call this information meaningless because of what they don’t tell you.

What hit counters don’t tell you:

• What location did these “hits” came from?
  – Are most of them from distant locations that you don’t serve?
• How much time did they spend on each page?
  – They could be instantly determining that your site is irrelevant to them. 
• How many different people are you reaching?
  – Is it 20 people coming 5 times or 50 people coming twice?
• How are the number trending? How many of those “hits” come in the last month?
  – Are you getting more each month or are the number dwindling?
• How are they discovering your website? Did they use a search engine? Which one? What search terms did they use?
  – Perhaps they arrived at your site looking for something far afield from what you offer.
• Which pages draw the most audience interest?
  – Are they ignoring the pages that you feel are most important?

The real dangers of hit counters

Hit counters carry an even a bigger danger than misleading information. They are often packaged with spyware, ad-ware, and advertising popups or banners. These can slow your site down and expose your site and your visitors’ computers to spam, viruses, and other malware.  Like other forms of malware, they are difficult to detect and delete. Even if you delete the hit counter, the harmful components may be left behind. The last thing any web owner should want is to cause harm to visitors. Most hosting services have policies that allow them to immediately shut down any websites that knowingly – or unknowingly – act as vehicles for such misbehavior.

Google Analytics – the alternative to hit counters

Your reason for wanting a hit counter is understandable. You should have ways to measure the traffic that your website is getting. However, hit counters do not deliver what you want. The most common solution is Google Analytics. It’s free and it can give you so much more insight. In fact, the information that it can provide is quite comprehensive and it makes it easier to figure out what actions you need to take to get better results. I’ll talk more about Google Analytics in future posts.