Hit counters are a common feature of many web pages.  So what is so tough about adding one to any page?  A web counter requires some simple computer programming code.  If you are placing a page AND the computer code to run a counter on the computer hosting your web page, that host must allow you to include a program on their server.  America OnLine and others do not allow you to add such programs to your website.  They do not grant sufficient privileges to allow your program to work.

So how do we get a counter on our page without our program code?   There are two options:

• Many site hosts provide the code for a counter for you!  AOL does this - you simply  access their counter software instead of supplying your own.   In this way AOL can restrict people from placing potentially dangerous programs on their server and still allow their customers to have hit counters.  Check with your web host to determine if they provide a hit counter you can use.  And note that it may still be possible for you to choose from a variety of different counter designs with your site provider's counter code.

• The second option is to use a free counter service.  For this option, your counter will contain a small advertisement on it for the counter provider.   Your web page will include a link to their website using a unique identifier for your page so that its count file may be incremented (increased by 1) each time a hit occurs on your web page.  One provider of such a free service is www.beseen.com - they supplied the counter on Dr. West's main page.

Regardless of the option chosen, you'll need to get the code to link to the counter you will use from the counter provider (either your web host or a site such as BeSeen).  If you are bound and determined to add a counter with your own code, you'll still need to check with the host to determine what program code is compatible with their server software, ensure that you have read/write permissions, etc.  One place to find out more about this most complicated option is Why Internetworking:  Web Page Hit Counter.  And they also link to a reference at University of Illinois with more than you ever wanted to know about "server side" programming

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