Hit counters are valuable because they allow site visitors to see how many people visited or used a server-based tool.

This is a very simple implementation of a counter. You can see it run at the link above.

The counter code is in the back-end/server-side logic.

PHP5 version

$iCount=file_get_contents('count.txt');
file_put_contents('count.txt',$iCount+1);
echo '<p><span style="font-weight:bolder;border:1px solid #000;padding:2px;">'.$iCount.' gradients created.</span></p>';

PHP4 version

$iCount=file_get_contents('tri.count.txt');
$fp=fopen('tri.count.txt','w+');
fwrite($fp,$iCount+1);
fclose($fp);
echo '<p>'.$iCount.' downloads</p>';