June 16, 2003

Is there a meaningful propose to a hit counter? I visit 20+ regular sites a day, and probably as many other new ones, until I just stopped and looked at yours, to see what you were blogging on about, I have never once looked at a counter.

What do I care how many numbers a site gets? Maybe it matters to people who are whoring pop-ups and advertising, but not to me.

P.S. I don't sign or read "guest" books either. If I really want to say something I can send them an email.

I don't know about LIAR, but they both reek EGO.

What Sassy said.

Dang, Sassy. I'm going to have to start getting here earlier than you!!! :^)

Sitemeter's visible on my site because that's the deal if you want it free. I use it to see who refers me, although there are much better options for that out there. I'm pullin' 53 hits a day and PROUD to advertise that fact all over the 'sphere.

Oh, it could be a number of things. It could be that the blogger doesn't think it's anyone's business where their referrals come from and, really, it's not. Or that the blogger doesn't get all warped about hits per day and therefore doesn't think it's as big of a deal as, say, someone who repeatedly rants about not being able to other bloggers' hits per day to measure compare his own. Or, it could be that the blogger has switched between sites handling his/her hit counter and carried the numbers over but doesn't want to deal with some cranky old man making a big deal out of it.

Just out of curiosity, though, have you ever examined why you automatically assume everyone who doesn't tell you about everything is a liar?

Now I see the argument for LIARS, sorry A-Man

Egomaniacs and liars, must password protect their counters.

I still don't see how that matters to surfers who aren't whoring to their advertisers (nobody reads) or their EGOs (nobody cares about)

Sorry INDIGO, I thought I arrived late.

I think if someone has a counter on their site - for whatever reason (track visits, track referrals, track visitors/IPs) - if the meter's visible - the rest of the info should be as well....especially if that info had been visible before. I've noticed a couple of sites that have switched from open access to no access.

And why does anyone care where someone else's referrals are coming from? Curiosity. And, maybe to see if their recommendations to a friend - or a link to that site - have been taken.

The question that begs to be asked is.....if one doesn't care about the traffic (referrals or numbers) - why have the counter?

HEY! I know you don't mean me cause I'm not over here, but I never looked at it as being secretive, I thought I was protecting those who visited my site..I'm still wondering what that info would give you that I woudln't want someone know about myself...I will say in my case my diary has to remain *secretive* in the sense I wouldn't want people (in my personal life) to read it. I have been lied to online big time, it's a terrible feeling..If anything I think I'm a little too open at times, I'd give you my password to that and my diary if you wanted...and that is not something I'd give to someone unless I felt they were trustworthy.

Oh By the way, I got a counter orginally when I wanted unsigned notes but had a mean anon noter...I found out thru the counter it was a "friend" who was leaving the notes. :(

I used to have a diary on dear diary and it was fun reading the *hits* there though...
so I guess theres lots of reasons to have one...

Equating nudism with hit counters. Interesting.

I keep my meter locked for the same reason I don't walk around naked in public: I can't take the pointing and laughing.

I posted a link to a screenshot of my hit meter on my site. You can see why some of us don't open it to inspection. Now, perhaps Acidman can be a bit more understanding in the future.

I'll bet your traffic increases tenfold, now that we've seen your link on A-Man, kome on ANNA - git nekid.

What guy wouldn't love a gal with a big truck, a nice rack, and who's read Sylvia Plath? Well I like her, the guys prolaly don't know who Sylvia is.

Course will have to take your word for it, ANNA, til you show us your rack.

One of the better blogs I've seen, maybe she's related to A-Man? MAYBE?

Least she doesn't blog a bunch of shit she doesn't know anything about.

I am always disappointed when I can't access a meter, but the reason I do that is when I see them in my own referrers log. I have found new reads by folowing someone else's referrers. And that's what's fun to see; not the number of hits. Also it's fun to see how many times I appear in the referrer log compared to others. If I refer to site Z a lot, and site Y refers to site Z a lot, then if I have never read site Y, there's a good chance I'd want to be.

I've never thought in terms of people being liars or "bad" to have passwords; just eccentric.

Clicking back to the referrer sites that are counters/logs has also allowed me to see what the other ones out there look like, other than Site Meter.

I think it's reading too much into it to think people are fudging stats if they have a passworded meter. No doubt it happens, but it's probably not common.

I used to have my hit counters open for everyone until I got accused of trolling for hits and trying to bump my hit counter up as some sort of ego stroke. Since then I took them all off of my site. I have sitemeter (password protected) as a means to access referrals and user agents. As per their agreement I have to show it on my site. I make websites for money and it's useful information. I can get the same, and more in depth info, from webalizer on my host but it only updates once every 24+ hours while sitemeter updates all the time.

Also, it is the curiosity factor. Believe me, it's not ego. The small number of hits I get are certainly not food for a hungry ego.

I certainly don't notice sitemeters or other trackers on the blogs I read, but I want one on my site so I can see who's looking in, or at least, where they're coming from.

The last time anyone raised the ego issue with me about having an open tracker, it backfired.

<evil, maniacal cackle>

I thought a password is something your supposed to have. I thought the web was a dangerous place where bad people can sneak in and steal your identity. I figured that if you don’t lock it up, you encourage thievery.

The noter who mentioned bumping up numbers reminded me, on my diary I set it where my ISP doesn't log, however its kinda worthless, I make up for a good bit of my numbers, it still counts them even though I set it not too..and I constantly go back and forth to my site and others when I'm on...
At one time I used to get lots of hits (relativily speaking) and notes but truly that wasn't what I was after.

I have a hit counter mainly for the referral log. It helps me find out who is linking to my weblog, not so I can police them but so I can thank them for reading my weblog.

The fact that you don't have your hit counter passworded automatically makes your word true? Are we supposed to believe this statement:

showed me a long time ago how to plug whatever stats you want to into one of those. I could jimmy my hit counter and pump it to whatever I wanted it to be. But I don't do that, and you are free to check not only my visits but my referrals. They are all real.

Of course site meters matter not to me, they're not on my site. Not because it doesn't generate traffic, but just because I think it's just another silly tag and I'm not sure how professional it really looks. Your visitors aren't going to give a hoot who else is visiting. Everyone plays fast and loose with the numbers anyway.

So in the big scheme of things, what does it matter?

Passwords? On things besides web silliness, that's a mosquito of another color. I'm not even going to go there tonight.

There are two issues here.

Firstly, whether or not a 'hit counter' is advisable at all. Myself, I think they look pretty damn stupid under the best of circumstances. They smack of Geocities, pictures of some fat broads cat, and "My Home Rocketry Site".

Secondly, providing your willing to put up with that eyesore on your site in the first place, why bother to protect it? No one cares.

I have server logs to track my traffic. I have referrer scripts to track my, uh... referrers. I choose to keep them private for a variety of reasons, primarily to protect the privacy of others but also because it's not anyones business.

That said, the biggest reason I don't use third-party scripting to monitor traffic is that I see no reason to bog down my site with invalid gibberrish while providing demographic info to someone else. As you well know, nothing comes for free and those cute little free gizmos are a little too expensive for me.

I can fuck up my scripting all by myself, I don't need SiteMeter or Counter.com to do it for me.

A-Man... you pay for hosting. Take a good look at that control panel, I bet there is more logging info there than there are empty silver bags in cardboard boxes on your back porch.

One thing I can say, if I'm fudging, I'm not good at it. I'm damn proud of my 13 hits a day, why would I hide that?

Some of the referrer info, like the GOOGLE "total idiot" searches kind of let me down...

Just for kicks....and I know that this is late in the game . . . but you can comment out the sitemeter and still be able to use the free sitemeter/hit counter service. Just add the following code around the html:

<!-- Place code here -->