Hit-Counter

The Hit-Counter is a useful script that allows the webmaster to display on a web page how many users have visited a page. The counter displays on your web-page as normal text which can be configured the same way as any other text.

Setting up the Hit Counter

The Counter is a CGI script that relies on Server Side Includes (SSI) to operate. In order for your webpage to be capable of running a CGI script such as this, you must rename your .html or .htm file to use the file-extensions .shtml, .shtm or .sht. For example, index.html should be renamed index.shtml. Don't forget to re-adjust your links after making this change.

Next, in your HTML source at the location in the web-page where you would like the counter to appear, add the following text code:

Configuration Options

The counter can be placed be placed between words or HTML tags, for example:

Welcome, Visitor <b>#<!--#exec cgi="/cgi-bin/counter" --></b>, to our web-site! would look like this:

Welcome, Visitor #42, to our web-site!

You can also use a different text code to add a suffix to the hit number:

You are our <!--#exec cgi="/cgi-bin/counter-ord"--> visitor! would appear as:

You are our 42nd visitor!

Things to Remember

Remember to name the HTML files correctly for CGI compatibility (i.e. .html -> .shtml).

Should the Hit-Counter fail to work properly, we recommend that you delete and re-install it from the netConsole.

Related Items

• IC Tech. Ref. Document: Using the Common Gateway Interface
• IC Tech. Ref. Document: Server Side Includes (SSI)
• Free On-line Dictionary of Computing's definition of the Common Gateway Interface
• Free On-line Dictionary of Computing's definition of the Server Side Includes
• NCSA's The Common Gateway Interface
• NCSA's Introduction to CGI
• NCSA's SSI Tutorial
• Plenty of SSI Documentation courtesy of The CGI Resource