What counts as a 'view'?

[sun_sea_sky]

Over the last few weeks I've uploaded a few stories which have had widely different number of views, in particular the last one. Now I'm curious. What is a 'view'?

The stories might be crap, that's fine. But how do you know if they are crap without reading them?

Some stories were multiple pages, the ones with more views had more pages.

So does anyone know what adds one to the view count?

• Reading any page
• Reading all pages
• Reading the first page
• Reading the last page

If reading any page adds one (per page) then a 3-page story (that someone reads to the end) would get a +3 count, rather than a +1 count.

Also, what happens if the same person re-reads a story?

• It is only counted once
• It is counted every time they read it

I write this because my story which has the highest score (as I write this) has the lowest view count. Is it the day of the week? Is it the Olympics? Is it that some descriptions encourage a lot more people to read a story than others?

 

[Stella_Omega]

For almost every site that registers "views" a "view is any sort of internet entity clicking on that page for any length of time. it could be a human who reads the page for ten minutes: it could be a 'bot' that registers the page's existence and leaves within a microsecond to report back to its command center-- google, say, or Yahoo.

Although some server softwares can tell the difference? The odds of this site being sophisticated enough to do so are exceedingly slim. Whole lotta dinosaur going on around here. We love it in spite of all of that.

 

[sun_sea_sky]

OK, but does a 3-page story count as 3 views?

 

[oggbashan]

OK, but does a 3-page story count as 3 views?

Probably.

But the view counter and the vote counter do not update at the same time, nor in the same locations. It is possible, if rare, to have more votes than views.

What is known is that views do NOT equal reads. Pending stories can acquire views with no one actually looking at them. Bots can create views. Searching for stories can create views for stories that the reader won't look at beyond the first screen.

All the view counter can do is compare one or more of your stories. If one has twice the views of another...

...You probably had an attractive title!

 

[Bramblethorn]

All the view counter can do is compare one or more of your stories. If one has twice the views of another...

...You probably had an attractive title!

It also depends on the luck of the queue.

I've had a couple of times when my story was the first thing showing on the "New Stories" page and stayed there for half a day - those ones typically picked up about 5k views. But my most recent episode was almost instantly buried under a flood of new stories in the same category, and it still hasn't broken 2k. C'est la vie.

 

[gentledemands]

I don't worry about it much. I figure that it's the number of votes that counts.

If I get a 'hit' on the page, it doesn't matter to me but the likelyhood of someone voting that hasn't read to the last page is pretty low unless the writing is extremely bad. I figure the number of people who vote is likely to be closer to the number who actually ready the story.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I don't worry about it much. I figure that it's the number of votes that counts.

If I get a 'hit' on the page, it doesn't matter to me but the likelyhood of someone voting that hasn't read to the last page is pretty low unless the writing is extremely bad. I figure the number of people who vote is likely to be closer to the number who actually ready the story.

When I post a new chapter, I typically get about 5000 views in the first week, maybe 50 votes - but the earlier chapters will also get a couple of thousand extra views, so presumably a lot of views equate to people who are reading at least enough to click through.