Well, I got a girlfriend just because of that. My personal blog was kinda popular in those days. A girl once commented/emailed (forgot) something in the lines of -- You gotta be kidding, the counters is fake and scripted, right? It is increasing every second or so. You cannot have so many visitors!

Those were the times of the high hundred-thousands visits to my site if not millions each month.

I told her to meet me and look at the analytics. I show her the stuffs and she became my girlfriend. ;-)

also banner ads:

https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/web-design-history

And web-rings!

It's actually in the source in one of the examples! :)

> <IMG SRC="/cgi/webcounter.cgi">

Oh yeah, had one of those on my neopets shop along with a MIDI of Thank You by Dido.