What do you think? Some people think it helps show the popularity of site if you let your visitor counter show on the page. Personally, I like the counter to show. I think it encourages me. My personal preference is to put the counter at the bottom of the page in clear, but not very prominent layout.

While I am talking about this, is there any kind of counter or script that will allow me to see where my visitors have come from, even if it's just by IP address. If one wanted to, they can find out where IPs are located. I have used those map programs, but I found they don't mean very much, they are mostly just for the interest of the map graphic itself.

My site stats are my business.
Your site stats are your business.
If you want to tell me, that's your business.
But I'm not telling you my business, generally speaking (vangogh's the lone exception so far because he's a cool guy and because he helps me solve stuff.)

I don't see what you could gain from having your stats visible if you don't have to.
People aren't going to visit more, click more adverts, buy more products or tell more people about your site is they have access to your stats.

Hello,

I think its a good idea to hide your stats because if your getting alot of traffic people will try copying your site if they know your making money. Also i good website stats program is called awstats its open source and free, its tells you everything from hits to visits to ip addresses, what serach engines have visited and what pages are viewed most plus much more, its very powerful and its FREE.

Hope this helps.

Thanks all for your good opinions. Makes perfect sense to me. I agree, in the end the site stats, even the number of visitors is just the webmaster or the client. That being said, it would appear that all the different counter designs and scripts you can get are just fluff and hype or bells and whistles that take up space on the page.

If you are running a forum you can tell your visitors how many members you have. But if it's a page it's not good idea to show it to public. Some people could want copy your content as RNWEBHOSTING wrote

Well, google/microsoft don't do that, so you don't.

Kidding, I hid my stats because I don't get tens of thousands visitors to my site.