15th Aug 2007
Why you don’t need a hit counter….
It seems that every other web site we visit has some sort of hit counter on the main page, supposedly telling us how many people have been there before us.
So we’re going to explain why you don’t need one, and what you should be doing instead for SEO.
Most web sites will normally implement a hit counter on their site for one or both of two reasons — to give them a rough estimate of the number of visitors, and/or to give visitors the impression that their site is popular and thus worthy of a good look.
Let’s consider the first reason. There is nothing wrong with wanting to know how many people have visited your web site, in fact it’s something that you really do need to know for SEO. However…putting a visible hit counter on your home page is not the answer, especially not one of those free services.
For one thing, the free services require you to promote their site as part of their free service. For another, they are normally slow and increase the time it takes for your pages to load.
Most importantly, a hit counter doesn’t provide you with all of the information you need for true SEO.
Just look at any of the top web sites out there and we promise that you will not find a visible hit counter on any of them!
That alone should tell you that the common hit counter is worthless. If a visible counter was worthwhile, don’t you think CNN or Yahoo would have one?
You just can’t win with a visible hit counter. If your site does not get many visitors, all it’s going to do is make sure that the visitors you do get know that they are not visiting a popular site. If anything, this will most likely discourage visitors from exploring your web site in detail. (more…)
It seems that every other web site we visit has some sort of hit counter on the main page, supposedly telling us how many people have been there before us.
So we’re going to explain why you don’t need one, and what you should be doing instead for SEO.
Most web sites will normally implement a hit counter on their site for one or both of two reasons — to give them a rough estimate of the number of visitors, and/or to give visitors the impression that their site is popular and thus worthy of a good look.
Let’s consider the first reason. There is nothing wrong with wanting to know how many people have visited your web site, in fact it’s something that you really do need to know for SEO. However…putting a visible hit counter on your home page is not the answer, especially not one of those free services.
For one thing, the free services require you to promote their site as part of their free service. For another, they are normally slow and increase the time it takes for your pages to load.
Most importantly, a hit counter doesn’t provide you with all of the information you need for true SEO.
Just look at any of the top web sites out there and we promise that you will not find a visible hit counter on any of them!
That alone should tell you that the common hit counter is worthless. If a visible counter was worthwhile, don’t you think CNN or Yahoo would have one?
You just can’t win with a visible hit counter. If your site does not get many visitors, all it’s going to do is make sure that the visitors you do get know that they are not visiting a popular site. If anything, this will most likely discourage visitors from exploring your web site in detail. (more…)
Posted in SEO Techniques, SEO Trends | No Comments »