The counter program stores a record of the last IP address that viewed the page. It never counts the same IP address two times in a row. For the sake of simplicity, let's think of the IP address as a name rather than a number:

Sally visits the page -- the counter adds 1
John visits the page -- the counter adds 1
John re-visits the page -- the counter adds none
John re-loads the page -- the counter adds none
Sally re-loads the page -- the counter adds 1
John re-loads the page -- the counter adds 1

If you are trying to make your counter count by reloading your page without any other connection loading it since the last time you did, it will not work. To find out if your counter really is working have a friend load your page from their computer, then you reload it, then have your friend reload, so on and so forth.

99% of the "my counter is broken" inquiries are solved as soon as they realize this feature.