COUNTIF using dates

I need to do a count on a column that should contain dates. Can I write the criteria to be a nonspecific date, kind of like ",", but in date format? I obviously want to return a count of dates entered. But if a figure that is not a date gets entered into the column incorrectly, I don't want to show a count for that cell.

Thanks

I have a column that will have numbers and potentially a word in it. I want to perform two COUNTIF functions (in two separate cells). The first, which I wrote properly already, counts the number of times that word is in the column. The second function, which I'm having trouble with for some reason, needs to count the number of numeric values in the column while leaving the text-filled cells uncounted.

Originally Posted by FDibbins

2 ways to try...

	A	B
1	4/8/2015	4/10/2015
2	4/9/2015	4/12/2015
3	4/10/2015	Qty
4	4/11/2015	3
5	4/12/2015	3
6	4/13/2015
7	4/14/2015
8	4/15/2015

B5=COUNTIFS($A$1:$A$8,">="&B1,$A$1:$A$8,"<="&B2)
B6=COUNTIFS($A$1:$A$8,">="&DATE(2015,4,10),$A$1:$A$8,"<="&DATE(2015,4,12))

Thanks,

In the meantime, I made that problem work and realized I had a problem I was having more trouble with.