Do you avoid using a Counter?
Rules to Better Websites - Branding and Marketing|ae64fe7d-d37b-4a29-a41c-25b8dfd5680d
v2.0
Posted at
13/02/2015 2:44 PM by
Rebecca Liu
Rule Intro
In the past, Web people thought it would be useful to tell people how many visitors
the site has had. The idea behind it was that each visitor would see a figure and
think "oh, this site must be good, it has had X number of visitors" and elect to
stay with the site. It was basically a gimmick. So counters were born in various
shapes and sizes and more and more sites used them until someone realised it wasn't
actually adding anything useful to the site: the numbers meant nothing to the visitor
especially if they were really high. And if the numbers were low or perceived to
be low, depending on how long the site had been up, then visitors often left before
going any further. Plus the counters were virtually useless for Web site owners.
They didn't provide any useful information other than the fact that there were a
certain amount of visitors. There was no way of knowing how many of these visitors
were "unique" i.e. new to the site.
Behind-the-scenes Web tracking software now makes it possible to get
rid of the
counters and most professional sites have. Google Analytics allows
them to track their visitors much more comprehensively and use the
statistics to guide their marketing efforts.
See our to Better Google Analytics Reports
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Do you feel this rule needs an update?