Place a text link between those two tags and you get a transparent link - it won’t appear on the page (unless the visitor has javascript turned off - rare), but some search engines might read it as a legit link. Loren Baker, in a case highlighting a site that is #1 for a very good phrase in Google, explains the hows & whys of it all:http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-loves-transparent-links-hit-counter-spam/5615/

Basically, they offer a “free” hit counter as a means of placing these types of links on your site. Currently, at least in this instance, Google are allowing/ignoring/not knowing about this practice.