Some Thoughts on Counters

[TruckStopProductions]

Has anyone else noticed that we?re just down to a couple decent third-party counter companies?

Okay, so what?s a counter? Simply put, it?s a simple solution for finding out how many people are hitting your websites, what pages they?re viewing, where they?re coming from, and all that good jazz. Some of you might not use counters on your websites, since a lot of ISP?s provide decent stats packages these days. Most of the stats packages that are installed by an ISP for its clients (or installed by webmasters themselves) are log-dependent. In other words, they look at your logs on a regular basis ? once a day usually ? and crunch all of that information into something that is useful to you. A counter, on the other hand, usually involves a bit of code that you put directly into your webpages, and it will count hits and record visitor information as it happens. Counters are usually a bit less reliable than log analyzers, although the good ones are still pretty accurate and are better than they used to be thanks to the emergence of broadband. And they do have their advantages too.

To understand the point I?m about to make you first need to know how most counter companies make their money. Some offer premium products on a pay basis, but most counters are given away for free. In fact, at least one counter company (PayCounter.com) actually pays webmasters for using their counter ? how much depends on how much traffic the counter generates. These ?free? counter companies get their return through the placement of a small advertising button on each webpage that the counter?s users, meaning webmasters, want to be tracked. So webmasters pay for their ?free? counter then by providing traffic to the counter company.

Since the average image button displayed by counters is pretty small, barely more than 100 pixels wide, counter companies often feel the need to put something rather eye-catching in this space in hopes of attracting a few clicks.

And that?s where the problem comes in.

I remember when Sex Tracker first hit the adult market back in the Twentieth Century (wow, that makes it sound like a long time ago, doesn?t it!). They got a lot of attention because frankly they had a superior product. Their stats interface was truly cutting edge, and so many webmasters wanted to use their service. Sex Tracker was one of the first counter companies to provide some solid competition for WebSideStory (and yes, despite that ?clean cut? mainstream corporate image they display these days, WebSideStory was once in the online adult porn industry). I had a large number of AVS sites back then and wanted to use Sex Tracker for my network of sites. Problem was, Sex Tracker controlled what image would show up on that little counter button image that I had to place on my page, and they had a serious hard-on for hardcore.

Ever try to tell porn surfers that you can?t let them see your uncensored hardcore pictures until they prove they?re an adult by signing up for an AVS system while your counter button just below this sales pitch is displaying a close up of a model shoving a cucumber into her pussy? Um, yeah.

So I approached Sex Tracker at a tradeshow and they were largely unsympathetic. Essentially they were doing well, and they believed the hardcore images were vital to their success. They wouldn?t offer a less explicit service, so I moved on to other companies. Mostly I stuck to log analysis programs.

About five years have passed since I first approached Sex Tracker about this issue, and the other day I was curious about what Sex Tracker was up to these days. I took a swung by their website and signed up for a counter ? the signup process seemed unchanged. I classified my site in a rather tame category (in other words, not a hardcore category), put the counter on a webpage, loaded that sucker up, and boom... some serious penetration was decorating my little website. Apparently nothing has changed at Sex Tracker.

But something HAS changed, if not at Sex Tracker. Something has changed that should make all counter companies stand up and pay attention. The United States Justice Department has been paying more attention to online pornography, and they?ve shown specific interest in 18 U.S.C. 2257. You know? that law that says a website needs to have certain model records in order if they publish sexually explicit content. What happens to all those webmasters using counters when the FBI shows up and asks to see the appropriate 2257 records for that cucumber insertion picture that was gracing the bottoms of their websites?

Gee yer honor, it was only a counter!

There are some counter companies that keep sexually explicit images off of their counter buttons. Perhaps even Sex Tracker has an option somewhere if you look hard enough ? although I couldn?t find it. But webmasters need to be careful about what they toss up on their websites. And counter companies hopefully will adapt to grow more sensitive of this very important legal issue.

So by all means, consider using counters when you design your websites. But if your counter contains sexually explicit images, you?d better ask your counter company to swap it out for something less risky ? or give you the appropriate model records so that you don?t get left holding the bag when the feds come knocking.

[tungsten]

so how do you figure sexcounter.com make money? their counter is invisible

[mardigras]

Anyone can get complete stats from any decent host, 3rd party counters these days are only for traffic or free hosted sites that don't offer stats. Ya play your marbles and sometimes you lose an aggie