<img src='../cgi-bin/counter.cgi' width=0 height=0>
hehe, I guess it only works on MSIE. at least this is what I would call unproperly implemented. How about <img src="shutdown.exe">
Reminds me a lot of some site redirection wars in the previous millenium...
You should try to use the php "system()" command instead:
system("#exec cgi="../cgi-bin/counter.cgi"");
I couldn't test it with a .cgi script execution here, but with a #include file="path" it worked in a php file.
see also:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?postid=50897
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.system.php