Where can I find a reliable counter?

[Natalie79]

Does anyone have suggestions for a reliable site that provides counters … or can I simply make one myself? (i would like that option!)

I registered at bravnet.com to use the counters and message boards they provide, but I found that they really messed things up: sometimes the boards suddenly cease to exist/ or someone else’s message board pops up… and I don’t even want to talk about the counter!

[ronaldb66]

Nat,

What do you want to use a counter for? Showing off your home page requests via some snazzy looking counter is a bit... passé, not to mention inaccurate and to be honest rather meaningless.
If you're interested in your site's traffic, the statistics provided by your host give a much better insight in visitor numbers and actual traffic.

If you do want to count the number of page requests yourself, a server side script could be built to keep track on a number of pages, which will give direct insight in how often certain pages are requested--but not much more.

By the way: if you Google for "site traffic analysis", you'll find a plethora of sites, companies, tutorials, how-to guides, etc. offering any and all sorts of site traffic analysis tools and services (most at a price, though).

If it's a blog you're wanting to track, maybe Adaptive Path's MeasureMap (http://www.measuremap.com/) is something to take a look at.
And, then there's Mint (http://www.haveamint.com/)...

[Natalie79]

...Showing off your home page...

Precisely :p

But I agree with you... the counters are not that accurate anyway.

~Nat