FREE COUNTERS

Aaddzz offer free counters in hundreds of different font styles. They also offer up to five free trackers which, when placed on pages that you want tracked, provide basic hit statistics. The accuracy of such statistics, though, could be under question when the company's own pages display broken picture icons instead of advertising banners (Aaddzz is also an online advertising broker).

Better Counter is reportedly the world's first counter that combines the feature to count several pages, the usability and clarity of a Java Applet and a complete analysis tool within a freely customizable page structure...and it's free!

ClaimItFor can provide webmasters with details regarding the number of visitors their site has received, as well as a listing of the most popular domains and the past 20 visitors. It's beta version is currently free to use, but will be offered only as a paid service following its official release.

eXTReMe Tracking provides some of the most detailed and useful tracking statistics I've seen from a free service. Apart from tracking and counting visitors, the eXTReMe system notes exactly where they came from, divides the sources into categories (search engines, websites, email links etc) and compares them (ie # of visitors originating from Yahoo! compared to the number arriving via Altavista). It even notes the most common keywords used to find your site. This is a great service for anyone interested in promoting their site.

FreeStats provide some very detailed statistics regarding referring pages, search engines, browser types etc, as well as general counting of visitor hits. The one drawback is that the tracking device is a 400x40 pixels advertising banner with a 400x20 pixels ad for FreeStats on top of it.

Internet Count offers a very limiting free counter. It's free account only allows for 300 hits/month, which means that it's only suitable for the smallest sites. After that, you can sign up for one of their other services, which range in price from $3.60/month to $10.80/month, depending on your traffic level.

JCount offers a selection of attractive Java-based animated counters. The counter is approximately 400x60 pixels in dimension, and an advertising banner flashes up intermittently to keep the counter free. Although it is unique, the banner does take quite a while to load and visitors without Java-enabled browsers won't be able to see the counter.

LinkExchange Fastcounter is one of the best, and most popular, free counters available (as you might expect from one of the Web's finest banner exchange companies - now owned by Microsoft®). In a matter of minutes, you can have a small (90x16 pixels), accurate counter displayed on your page.

MNetWeb Services is offering a free, small (130x50), personalisable counter. That is, you can choose from a variety of small icons to add to your counter so that it appears to be better suited to your page.

Pagecount offers very detailed statistical breakdowns and a free guestbook along with their free counter. The breakdowns count visitors, say where the visitors originated, reveal their Operating System and more... Unfortunately, the counter is attached to a large (472x94), unattractive banner ad, which can, to a certain degree, be personalised to suit your site's visitors.

Rapid Axess gives you the choice of either hosting a medium-sized (234x60) image with visible counter (and have the option of receiving a statistical summary via email) or, alternatively, to host a smaller graphic (234x44), without a visible counter, and receive your data solely via email.

ShowStat is a free tracking service available to sites that generate fewer than 10,000 hits per day. Their statistical output cntains a great deal of relevant information pertaining to time trends, referring URLs etc. The tracking device is shown as a small (35x35) icon.

Site Meter is certainly one of the most exhaustive and feature-packed free counter services on the Web. As well as offering a free customisable visible counter, they provide in-depth online statistics regarding visit durations, referring pages, entry & exit pages, and many other specific details regarding individual surfers.

Site-Stats, like Pagecount (above), provides some very detailed statistical reports with its free counter; including hourly, daily, and monthly breakdowns as well as info regarding browser domains, Operating Systems and more. In exchange for the service, they also require that a large banner (400x80 total) be attached to the counter.

Stat Track offers a free counter/tracker service providing such details as referrals, last 20 visitors, browser usage, Javascript status, resolution etc. While the provided details are beneficial, Site Track's system upholds that you must place a 400x40 pixel banner and a 400x15 pixel device label on your site to activate the tracker.

SuperStats offer reasonably detailed real-time statistical output. They do, however, require that you place a 400x40 banner on your page below a 400x20 ad for Superstats.

TheCounter.com provide a comprehensive counting/tracking service at no charge. Their tracker provides details such as OS and Browser used, the number of visitors with Java and Javascript enabled, as well as a range of referrer details, including search engine keywords used. Their counter comes in 4 different styles, including invisible, and stats can be made either public or private.

WebSideStory provides a free way to count your visitors while promoting your site. By placing their small (88x62 pixel) animated logo on your site, you will be presented with both a detailed Java-based readout of your visitors and an HTML summary. On top of this, you'll be ranked in the WebSideStory's Top 1000 web pages according to a nominated category. As your rank improves, you will be rewarded with more traffic. This is a very popular counter for all sites as there are no size restrictions and few (if any) content restrictions. They even have a Hacking category and an Adult 10000 site.

WebTracker is a very popular free counter/tracker. Apart from providing details regarding the number of page accesses, WebTracker (using persistent cookies) tells you how many return visitors you have, so that you can monitor your site's growing community of regular visitors. The tracking device is displayed as a small (88x31 pixel) graphic. Note that sites receiving in excess of 500 visitors per day will not be accepted into the program due to bandwidth limitations.