Overview: One of the more common features included on website homepages is a simple counter that increases every time the page is loaded. This tells the public how many times the page was viewed since a particular date. The counter can be either plain text, or a graphical odometer-style counter, among others.

Before Beginning

Decide on the type of counter you want: graphical or text.

Follow these steps for a graphical counter.

1. Decide on a number of digits for the counter.
2. Insert the following HTML code in your webpage at the location you'd like your counter to appear:

   <img src="/cgi-bin/nph-count?link=http://whatever.com/&width=X">

   Replace X with the number of digits you selected in Step 1. Replace http://whatever.com/ with the URL of the webpage on which you are placing this counter. This will uniquely identify your counter data in the master logfile and is a necessary step.

3. Optionally, if you'd only like to track hits without actually displaying the counter itself, enter: <img src="/cgi-bin/nph-count?link=http://whatever.com/&show=NO">

   Replace http://whatever.com/ with the URL of the webpage on which you are placing this counter. This form will cause the image NOT to be displayed. You may then create a SEPARATE HTML page with the following code on it:

   <img src="/cgi-bin/nph-count?link=http://whatever.com/&width=X&increase=0">

   Replace http://whatever.com/ with the URL of the PREVIOUS page (the one you are tracking). This form will then show the number of hits on that page WITHOUT increasing the number each time this second page is shown.