If your site is coded in php it is fairly easy to add a text-based hit counter. With more work, you could display it in one of the fancy "odometer" styles.
<?php
$dfile = "hit_count.txt";
if (file_exists($dfile))
{
// read the last hit count and increment it
$fp = fopen($dfile, "r");
$count = fread($fp, 10);
$count = (int)$count;
$count++;
fclose($fp);
$fp = fopen($dfile, "w");
fputs($fp, $count);
fclose($fp);
// determine proper ordinal suffix
$rem = $count % 10;
if (($rem >= 1) && ($rem <= 3)) {
if ((($count % 100) >= 11) && (($count % 100) <= 13)) {
$suffix = "th";
} else {
switch ($rem)
{
case (1):
$suffix = "st";
break;
case (2):
$suffix = "nd";
break;
case (3):
$suffix = "rd";
break;
default:
$suffix = "";
break;
}
}
} else {
$suffix = "th";
}
// display the hit count message
echo '<p><br><font size="-2"><b><em>You are the</em> ' . $count . $suffix . "<em> visitor since 01 January 2006.</em></b></font></p>\n";
}
?>
To use this you have to create a file in the same directory as this script that is named hit_count.txt. It can be empty initially and thereafter it will contain the hit count.