View counts are dropping?

[gunhilltrain]

Since Lit automatically offers "similar threads," I'll link to that below. So it used to be that even with a "meh" story, one that deservedly got a mediocre score, I might get 8,500 views, even 35,000. But 674 and 378? I would say for my case I noticed it about a month ago.

Could just be a fluke, but it was mentioned in this thread from March.

Is readership down?

 

[Emotional]

Perhaps it is because it is summer.

People are outside biking, hiking, vacations, ball games, etc.

I know I read much more in the winter

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm not sure. I've commented on this before. I've been tracking data at this site since April 2017, over 5 years ago. At that point, the number 250 story on the 12-month most-viewed list had about 115,000 views. Now, the number 250 story has 90,700 views. That's a significant drop of 25,000 views. It cannot possibly be random; there must be a reason for the drop. I suspect it's the result of one or more of three things: one, that more stories are published than ever before, so it's harder for a story to capture readers amid all the competition; two, the site has done something to filter out "false" views--views that result from bots or something like that (I don't understand how that works); and three, that as the site has evolved readers find stories differently from the way they found them before, and that affects story numbers.

At the top end of the top 250 list, the views are much the same as they were five years ago. The top story has around 450,000 views. That's not different from five years ago. Some stories are getting every bit as many views as stories did in the past.

My own experience is that my stories don't get quite the same number of views they got when I was posting stories five years ago. There might just be more competition.

 

[Morm]

I've noticed something similar in my own portfolio and in other prominent authors I've clicked through, but I admit it is based on a very small sample size. The first series I wrote was several years ago, and it was several segments long. It had interesting view counts by chapter.

As it stands now:
Chapter 1 has about 120k views.
Chapter 2, about 90k.
Chapter 3, about 24k.
Chapter 4, about 43k.
Chapter 5, about 16k.
Chapter 6, about 35k.

Initially, I was confused by parts 4 and 6 having higher view counts than their previous chapters. I expected viewership to gradually taper off the longer the series progressed, as less people were interested in waiting around while I finished writing later chapters. But then I realized those chapters have better received sex scenes, and thus have better re-readability. Most of those views are very likely revisits, and the lower view counts are likely more distinct views who only clicked once.

In newer series I've seen and written, that effect of hotter chapters spiking up higher has seemed less pronounced. It makes me wonder if the site is doing a better job discounting repeat viewers, and the numbers we're seeing are closer to a distinct viewer count than previously. Could this also be explained by less viewers overall? Certainly. However, in that case, my intuition would be that I'd see the same percentage spikes for hotter chapters, just at lower view numbers.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I'm not sure. I've commented on this before. I've been tracking data at this site since April 2017, over 5 years ago. At that point, the number 250 story on the 12-month most-viewed list had about 115,000 views. Now, the number 250 story has 90,700 views. That's a significant drop of 25,000 views. It cannot possibly be random; there must be a reason for the drop. I suspect it's the result of one or more of three things: one, that more stories are published than ever before, so it's harder for a story to capture readers amid all the competition; two, the site has done something to filter out "false" views--views that result from bots or something like that (I don't understand how that works); and three, that as the site has evolved readers find stories differently from the way they found them before, and that affects story numbers.

At the top end of the top 250 list, the views are much the same as they were five years ago. The top story has around 450,000 views. That's not different from five years ago. Some stories are getting every bit as many views as stories did in the past.

My own experience is that my stories don't get quite the same number of views they got when I was posting stories five years ago. There might just be more competition.

I expect some amount of fluctuation. I'm not going to post links here, because this is not the story feedback forum. But the first one that struck me has been up for close to three weeks and it only has 676 views. Okay, so maybe it rambles somewhat, although that might be expected in that category. Then I put one up two days ago that only has 394 views so far.

As I said, I've looked back at some of my stories that I admit are not that good and that got mediocre scores, and yet they still got, say, 23,000 views. So maybe I'm doing something wrong or maybe it's a fluke, but it's still puzzling.

 

[PennameWombat]

My two stories with the highest view counts are about 42k and 38k. I’m travelling and don’t have my stats sheet at hand, but my average is around 10k, with median slightly lower than that. Most of my stories are in SF&F, NonHuman, some Erotic Horror, which seem somewhat lower overall for views in general (although I have a number of these with 20k+ views), which mostly holds that my highest views are Anal, Mature and E&V.

My most recent story as part of Geek Pride is in Mature and has ticked up to just over 8k views.

I’ve only been here since late 2018, and I can’t say there’s been a specific drop off, my experience is relatively consistent. My highest viewed stories were released in 2020 (Summer Lovin) and 2021 (Nude Day) contests.

 

[tenyari]

Hard to see trends in specific stories if they're not yours, but the site overall doesn't appear to be dropping off in 'websearch':

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today 5-y&q=literotica

- That's not a true indicator of popularity, as it's just google searches and who even uses that to get here... but, it's been fairly consistent for the last 5 years, though it did suffer a big drop off in 2016, way before the discussion at hand was relevant:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=literotica
(that probably has more to do with growing awareness of google tracking than anything else.)

My own story stats are too old to be relevant.

So my guesses for any recent drop off would be a question of competition?

There's no fee to read stories here, so the recent move by many payment system to penalize adult content isn't likely the cause - in fact it should have caused an increase here because this place becomes the alternative when paid places get knocked out.

-shrug-

 

[gunhilltrain]

Hard to see trends in specific stories if they're not yours, but the site overall doesn't appear to be dropping off in 'websearch':

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today 5-y&q=literotica

- That's not a true indicator of popularity, as it's just google searches and who even uses that to get here... but, it's been fairly consistent for the last 5 years, though it did suffer a big drop off in 2016, way before the discussion at hand was relevant:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=literotica
(that probably has more to do with growing awareness of google tracking than anything else.)

My own story stats are too old to be relevant.

So my guesses for any recent drop off would be a question of competition?

There's no fee to read stories here, so the recent move by many payment system to penalize adult content isn't likely the cause - in fact it should have caused an increase here because this place becomes the alternative when paid places get knocked out.

-shrug-

I'll post my submissions list if you are curious. Submissions The two stories I was referring to were posted on May 29 (yes, it rambles, as I said) and June 19. Far less than 1,000 views. I'll link directly here to a story that was pretty bad and was quite short, and yet it still had got 23,000 views. I even botched the title, as I mentioned in the comments.

Confession

I would consider deleting it, but I want to see where I've been. So I guess it's me, but I still don't get it. It's not the scores that I'm referring to, it's the view count.

 

[NotWise]

Views on my most recent story have been better than I expected, and the views on my older stories are running at their usual pace. I don't see a drop.

A few hundred views is awfully low. I wonder if the site has just not updated the view count for some reason.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Views on my most recent story have been better than I expected, and the views on my older stories are running at their usual pace. I don't see a drop.

A few hundred views is awfully low. I wonder if the site has just not updated the view count for some reason.

Anything is possible, but I don't want to become somebody who blames the site for whatever happens.

 

[NotWise]

Anything is possible, but I don't want to become somebody who blames the site for whatever happens.

Me either.

I looked at the EC hub for your most recent story and noticed that most of the stories published the same day had pretty low views -- often below 1K. The holiday weekend may have kept readership low, and in the case of your story, the readers may not have gone for the title and short description.

I've put quite a few stories into EC, but none for a while now. The readers have been pretty unpredictable. There aren't a lot of them, and they get a lot of stories thrown their way. They don't vote as much as readers in some categories, and they can be capricious without fear of running out of material.

 

[tenyari]

Yeah those view counts in EC are amazingly low in both the new section and popular section.

I just now learned that the popular section is only about score and not views (something I suspect EVERYONE except me already knew) - as the Popular section also has shockingly low view counts, while the random section looks more normal.

Comparing this with Sci-Fi which I had open in another tab, it's pretty similar. Nonhuman likewise.

Going for some categories I suspect would be very popular... BDSM, LW, and Ehib...

BDSM has one new story that hit 7k views, but the rest are all low.
LW has new stories in the 10k, 20k, and even 30k range - it seems people really like that category.
Exhib has two over 7k, and two others over 6k. The rest are low.

So, other than LW, it looks like a widespread trend.

 

[RejectReality]

Blinking through a few categories and expanding to see a few days worth of new postings, everything looks strangely low to me. It's rare for even a lower traffic category to not pick up 1k views over the course of the first day, and I'm seeing a lot of sub 1k listings.

Looked at a couple of ranking sites, and Lit's actually on a bit of an upward trend over the last couple of months, so it's not incoming traffic.

It definitely looks out of whack to me.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Blinking through a few categories and expanding to see a few days worth of new postings, everything looks strangely low to me. It's rare for even a lower traffic category to not pick up 1k views over the course of the first day, and I'm seeing a lot of sub 1k listings.

Looked at a couple of ranking sites, and Lit's actually on a bit of an upward trend over the last couple of months, so it's not incoming traffic.

It definitely looks out of whack to me.

Which means leave it a week and see if it re-adjusts.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Me either.

I looked at the EC hub for your most recent story and noticed that most of the stories published the same day had pretty low views -- often below 1K. The holiday weekend may have kept readership low, and in the case of your story, the readers may not have gone for the title and short description.

I've put quite a few stories into EC, but none for a while now. The readers have been pretty unpredictable. There aren't a lot of them, and they get a lot of stories thrown their way. They don't vote as much as readers in some categories, and they can be capricious without fear of running out of material.

I never thought of the holiday weekend. Usually, a story is most read in the first - week? Ten days? Then the view count will slowly drift upwards for months, at least. Someone may favorite a story that is years old, although few will vote or comment on it. Oh, I just assumed that Erotic Couplings was popular because it's sort of what the site is about. Seems like I was wrong.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Yeah those view counts in EC are amazingly low in both the new section and popular section.

I just now learned that the popular section is only about score and not views (something I suspect EVERYONE except me already knew) - as the Popular section also has shockingly low view counts, while the random section looks more normal.

Comparing this with Sci-Fi which I had open in another tab, it's pretty similar. Nonhuman likewise.

Going for some categories I suspect would be very popular... BDSM, LW, and Ehib...

BDSM has one new story that hit 7k views, but the rest are all low.
LW has new stories in the 10k, 20k, and even 30k range - it seems people really like that category.
Exhib has two over 7k, and two others over 6k. The rest are low.

So, other than LW, it looks like a widespread trend.

I think Lit does have a list based on views (an "all-time" list) but I forgot the name of it. When I come back this evening I'll look for it.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Which means leave it a week and see if it re-adjusts.

Yes, I probably won't post anything else for at least ten days, maybe more. I have another site that needs attention anyway.

 

[NotWise]

Blinking through a few categories and expanding to see a few days worth of new postings, everything looks strangely low to me. It's rare for even a lower traffic category to not pick up 1k views over the course of the first day, and I'm seeing a lot of sub 1k listings.

Looked at a couple of ranking sites, and Lit's actually on a bit of an upward trend over the last couple of months, so it's not incoming traffic.

It definitely looks out of whack to me.

There's one thing to be careful with. The story stats that show up when you first open a category hub are usually wrong and/or incomplete. You have to expand the list ("More New XXX Stories") to get updated stats. I don't know why that problem hasn't been fixed.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I've noticed something similar in my own portfolio and in other prominent authors I've clicked through, but I admit it is based on a very small sample size. The first series I wrote was several years ago, and it was several segments long. It had interesting view counts by chapter.

As it stands now:
Chapter 1 has about 120k views.
Chapter 2, about 90k.
Chapter 3, about 24k.
Chapter 4, about 43k.
Chapter 5, about 16k.
Chapter 6, about 35k.

Initially, I was confused by parts 4 and 6 having higher view counts than their previous chapters. I expected viewership to gradually taper off the longer the series progressed, as less people were interested in waiting around while I finished writing later chapters. But then I realized those chapters have better received sex scenes, and thus have better re-readability. Most of those views are very likely revisits, and the lower view counts are likely more distinct views who only clicked once.

In newer series I've seen and written, that effect of hotter chapters spiking up higher has seemed less pronounced. It makes me wonder if the site is doing a better job discounting repeat viewers, and the numbers we're seeing are closer to a distinct viewer count than previously. Could this also be explained by less viewers overall? Certainly. However, in that case, my intuition would be that I'd see the same percentage spikes for hotter chapters, just at lower view numbers.

Views for chaptered stories always drop off after the first one. I don't see anything weird with what you posted.

Also, many are having to go back to work, instead of sitting around reading stories here at lit. With prices of everything on the rise they need the money more than a good stroke story.

 

[Morm]

Views for chaptered stories always drop off after the first one. I don't see anything weird with what you posted.

Also, many are having to go back to work, instead of sitting around reading stories here at lit. With prices of everything on the rise they need the money more than a good stroke story.

As I said, I was expecting views to drop off after the first one. What was weird to me was that some chapters had substantially MORE views than their predecessors. Part 4 having nearly 2x MORE views than part 3, and part 6 having more than 2x MORE views than part 5.

 

[SimonDoom]

As I said, I was expecting views to drop off after the first one. What was weird to me was that some chapters had substantially MORE views than their predecessors. Part 4 having nearly 2x MORE views than part 3, and part 6 having more than 2x MORE views than part 5.

Can you provide a link to your story/series/submission page in your signature? It's impossible to analyze this without having access to your stories.

Did you change the category from one chapter to the next? If so, that's the likely explanation for why a later chapter would have more views than an earlier one.

 

[RejectReality]

Final chapters tend to have significant bumps in my experience. My theory is that people are checking for a "The End" before bothering to start the series because there are so many unfinished ( unfortunately guilty of this ) stories on the site. This usually only takes hold after the full series has been out for a while.

Middle chapters can have bumps for a myriad of reasons. If you're category hopping, that's an obvious one. The size of the readership between categories varies enormously. Within the same category, you could have a good placement position on the new list. You could get an early H, which will drive readership. You could have limited competition in the category for a couple of days and remain on the new list longer. You could have created a description line that was much more attractive than the one for the previous chapter. A higher score can drive readership for even a middle chapter. If it appears ( even briefly ) in a high position on the toplists, that can pump up the views.

Views alone don't say much. If that chapter gets more reaction in the form of votes, favorites, and comments, that may be an indication that you nailed something. ( Or failed if the additional reaction is going the wrong way )

 

[pezzheaddazzler]

Since Lit automatically offers "similar threads," I'll link to that below. So it used to be that even with a "meh" story, one that deservedly got a mediocre score, I might get 8,500 views, even 35,000. But 674 and 378? I would say for my case I noticed it about a month ago.

Could just be a fluke, but it was mentioned in this thread from March.

Is readership down?

I don't know if it counts (i haven't read any of yours but ) but I'm usually on my tablet and the rate and add to favorites functions are giving errors server error try later so maybe your missing counts from that????

 

[Morm]

Can you provide a link to your story/series/submission page in your signature? It's impossible to analyze this without having access to your stories.

Did you change the category from one chapter to the next? If so, that's the likely explanation for why a later chapter would have more views than an earlier one.

Apologies, but I really prefer not to do that. Without getting into a big thing, I quite like my stories page the way it is, and I've learned the hard way that some people see a link to it as a target.

 

[Manu]

I don't know if it counts (i haven't read any of yours but ) but I'm usually on my tablet and the rate and add to favorites functions are giving errors server error try later so maybe your missing counts from that????

Can you let me know what browser you are seeing errors with? I just tested with an iPad and several Android tablets and I can't reproduce those errors, but there are thousands of different device/browser combinations, so it's difficult to guess which combination might not be working. Also, are you using the new story page or the classic Lit story page?

Thank you.