How to create a FrontPage Hidden Hit Counter

Web Templates

Photo Galleries

Resources

Articles

Tutorials

Desktop Wallpaper

FrontPage Tutorials

How To Create A Hidden Hit Counter in FrontPage

Component Unchanged in FP 98, 2000, 2002, 2003 (You must have server extensions v98, 2000 or 2002 on the server to use the Hit Counter Component)

This hidden counter is not really 'invisible', but will be practically undetectable in your page and it helps you track your page hits in the absence of a good stats package on your domain server. In an image editing program (such as Image Composer, Paintshop Pro or Photoshop Elements), create an image 3px by 3px or larger as a solid .gif (.jpg will not work), the same color as your page background, and save the image in the 'images' folder of your web using the 'save as' command from the drop-down. Do not make the image transparent.

In FrontPage, open the page you want to insert the hit counter in, and choose Insert | Web Component | Hit Counter, then choose Custom Picture in the Hit Counter Properties box. Type in '/images/yourpic.gif' in the box. (Substitute the name of your picture and use the forward slash as the first character in your file path on some servers.) Click OK and save the page. Publish your site 'changed pages only' to your server so all the files Frontpage tracks to make your components work thru the server extensions can get transferred. Do not publish the page by itself as a single page when you make a change to a page that contains a component that relies on the server extensions. Let Frontpage figure out everything that needs to be published to make the components work.

To view the count for the page that you inserted the hit counter in, just type in 'http://www.yoursite.com/_private/page.htm.cnt' into the web browser address bar to see your page hit count.

Substitute 'page' in the address for the name of the actual page hits you want to view. It's that easy!

If you have trouble, just repeat the steps again and make sure your image has been uploaded to the server and that the path name is correct.

On some servers (depending on how your server extensions are set up) you might need to remove a defective hit counter and publish the page again without it. Then start over inserting the hit counter into your page with the steps above, and re-publish changes only to your site so the server extensions can pick up the component changes as you publish.

FrontPage Tutorials

FP 2003
Interactive Buttons
Rounded Cell Corners
Include Page
Layers

FP 2000/2002
Discussion Forum
Hidden Hit Counter
Tips and Tricks
User Registration Form
Site Poll
Callouts & Autoshapes
Custom Confirmation
Custom Hit Counters
Collapsible Lists
Password Protect
Insert Flash into FP
Custom E-mail Links