Inserting Hit Counters

Inserting Hit Counters

A hit counter tabulates and displays the number of times a page has been visited. From the earliest days of the World Wide Web, Web site designers have attempted to keep track of the number of visitors who walked through their virtual doors. Today, hit counters remain popular. They give established Web sites credibility, and if you hope to attract advertisers, some record of Web site traffic is a minimal requirement. FrontPage offers a variety of counters that you can import directly to your Web site. You can also create your own, unique hit counter in GIF format. After you've added a hit counter to your page, it can be set to any number, or reset at any time back to zero to restart the count.

Insert a Hit Counter

Click the View menu, click Page, and then open the Web page you want to use.

Position the insertion point where you want the hit counter to appear.

Click the Web Component button on the Standard toolbar.

Click Hit Counter.

Click Finish.

Click the hit counter style option you want.

Select the Fixed Number Of Digits check box, and then enter the number of digits you want.

Click OK.

The words Hit Counter appear in brackets on the Web page as a placeholder. When you are linked to a server equipped with FrontPage Server Extensions or Microsoft SharePoint Team Services, you can click the Preview or Preview In Browser commands to test your hit counter.

Reset a Hit Counter

Click the View menu, click Page, and then open the Web page with the hit counter.

Double-click the hit counter.

Select the Reset Counter To check box, and then enter a counter number.

Click OK.

The words Hit Counter appear in brackets on the Web page as a placeholder. When you are linked to a server equipped with FrontPage Server Extensions or Microsoft SharePoint Team Services, you can click the Preview or Preview In Browser commands to test your hit counter.

Did You Know? You need to turn on support for features that require FrontPage Server Extensions. If not turned on by default, click the Tools menu, click Page Options, click Authoring tab, select the Browse-time Web Components check box, and then click OK. You can create your own hit counter. Click the Custom Picture option in the Hit Counter Properties dialog box, and then enter the location and name of the file in GIF format you want to substitute for your own hit counter. Your GIF file hit counter must include all numbers from zero through nine.