Share counts

One counter, one look

The number sits inside the button after the mark, behind a hairline, at every size — shown in full, because reading it exactly is the reason to show it. counters: true puts it on every service button in the kit. To count without switching the whole kit on, add ats_counter to the buttons you want; the class is also the only way the More button takes a number, and there it shows the page total, since that button stands for no single service. A button with no count to show stays a plain square rather than growing an empty box. Buttons widen to fit the number while keeping the selected height.

<div class="ats_kit ats_kit_size_32">
  <a class="ats_btn_facebook ats_counter"></a>
  <a class="ats_btn_x ats_counter"></a>
  <a class="ats_dd ats_counter"></a>
</div>

What is counted

A press, not a view. The widget sends one fire-and-forget ping when somebody actually uses a button. Nothing is recorded when the page merely loads. The number is our own tally of presses on your buttons — not the figure the service publishes, and not shares that happened anywhere but your page. That is worth knowing before you switch it on, because it has two consequences. Counting starts the day you install: there is no history to import, so an archive switched on this morning shows no numbers until people share it. And every service in the catalogue can carry a number, including email, SMS, print and copy link — we count the press ourselves rather than asking a platform for its total, so there is no public API to be withdrawn and nothing to drop off the list. The number moves the moment somebody presses, before the server has agreed; the stored figure catches up within a few minutes, and the same visitor pressing twice in quick succession counts once. Counting has to be switched on for any of it: with it off the numbers still load, but nothing new is ever added to them.

Counting survives the usual URL noise

http and https, a missing www, a trailing slash and campaign parameters all fold into the same count. A changed path is the one thing it cannot guess — that is what count recovery is for.