I am interested in giving a web counter service to my visitors. But
the catch is that the counters must be provided to my visitors in html
format (No other scripts). One other thing to be noticed is that the
html code which will be provided to my visitors must not be 4 lines
long. It must be within 10-20 words. I have seen a couple of free cgi
programs that I can use, to give this sort of a service to my
visitors. But I am looking for a php based program with an easy admin
area. Where can I get it. Now that cgi programs of this sort are
available for free I am looking a for a free php script that can do
the job.  Also I want to know how html counters work on a php and
mysql platform.

I haven't made a counter in PHP form but I believe it would be
relatively easy: Have a file containing the number of visitors asking
for the page. At first, the number should be 0, then, increment that
number every time somebody asks for the page.  In the HTML code, just
show that number as the number of visitors who visited the page.  I
have planned on doing this for a while, but then my school's server
decided to stop supporting PHP.  The code to change the content of a
text file located on the server is relatively easy to make.

I could provide the URL of a script with all the abilities you
require, but i canŽt find the script-interface in english.
This php script which is very easy to install allows you to offer an
attractive counter service to your visitors.
It generates one line of html code looking like
"<a href="http://www.12p.de/cs" target="_top"><img
src="http://www.yourdomain.com/cs/counter.php3?user" border="0"
width="100" height="15" alt="Freecounterservice"></a>"
and mails it to the user.
You can preview the scripts user-interface (sorry: only in german -
but youŽll surely be able to use it) in a fully functional demo at:
Counterservice
( http://www.12p.de/cs/ )

There are no additional scripts on the userŽs url required. And the
setup of the php script on your server shouldnŽt be a problem.
If you want to find out more about php scripting and how they work
youŽll find usefil infos at:
PHP A simple tutorial
( http://www.php.net/manual/en/tutorial.php

There was no search necessary so i canŽt provide a strategy here. 
If youŽre still interested in the script although it has been
translated into german please post here.
It should be easy to translate it back into english - all you got to
do is exchange a few lines of text in the scripts.

till-ga

netcash,  Try www.websitetrafficreport.com .  They offer a counter
which will provide all of the info that you are looking for (and much
more).  It's installed by copying and pasting 2 lines of HTML code
into your web pages.