Even though I knew the number of non-member readers was high, I was surprised to see they make up about 3/4 of all views for my stories. Anyone else on the same boat?

The difference between the number of reads in the actual story listing for a story (on the story's page itself) and the number of reads in these stats is eye-opening. Why the considerable difference? If a story's listing says it has 20,000 reads, but the stats say the true reads are 10,000, why post the first numbers at all? Some of the stories I looked at in the stats have one quarter to one fifth the 'read' numbers presented on the page for the story itself.

There is a difference between page hits and actual reads, but how do you determine the difference? And why post figures that do not accurately reflect reader response?

5 minutes ago, Geron Kees said:

 

There is a difference between page hits and actual reads, but how do you determine the difference? 

Now you have me curious. My current story shows some 20k views on the story page but only 13k on the stats page.

Am i right in thinking that the number of reads will be inflated by the number of chapters posted?

If you are posting a high number of them, you'll have more reads. I'm assuming it does not track that JohnA started the story and has read every chapter, which would really be only one read of the story. It likely tracks a read for JohnA for each time he comes to read a new chapter.

If you post one long story, or less chapters you'll have less reads, even though the story length is the same.

I did note that the numbers posted by the stories are 'views', not reads at all. That can be taken as a page hit count, and no more. Someone can click on that story page, stay one second, and leave, and it gets counted. 

There should also be 'time on page' counts recorded by the back end of this site (or Google Analytics, whichever is used), a more revealing number for reads. If someone is there on a story page for a few seconds, it's very likely they could not have read the chapter. If they were there ten minutes, it's much more likely they did. But where should the cut off be? I know from talking to a few of my readers that they simply open a story or chapter, 'select all', copy, and take the chapter with them to read at their leisure. That's a definite read, but it might only take them twenty seconds on the page to do it, so it looks like a hit to the site, and that's all.

And you're right, Tim, that chapter counts make all the difference. If you post one long story and it has 2000 views, it's a much more accurate account of what's going on than a story with many chapters. There are some stories on this site with whopping numbers of chapters and huge view counts, but if you go into the story and look at the chapter views, each may only have eight or nine hundred views. Fifty chapters times 800 views averaged for each chapter reads as 40,000 views. It looks impressive, but the truth is that the story had only 800 views, with 800 people each reading 50 chapters. It's deceptive in a way, as it is not an accurate accounting of what's happening. Certainly, a story's popularity cannot be ranked by views, as those stories with high numbers of chapters will always be ranked at that top of the list.

It's a difficult process keeping records of online traffic, I already know. But I don't place much stock in page hit numbers, especially the way they are tallied.

@Geron Kees

I don't think there's a way to track reads and @Myr has never said the system does. Views is what we have. For a story as a whole, those can be skewed by the number of chapters, I agree. I divide total views by number of chapter and use the average if I want to compare with long-assed stories.

Views are also influenced  by other factors. You mention one, and I'll add two more from my own personal experience. There are times I don't want to be interrupted by notifications so I'll read without signing in. Myr mentioned that one. My chapters get a lot of comments, I add to the views myself whenever I respond and readers also increase it by going back to read comments and author responses. Authors like you that tend not to post in chapters may also have less views because readers may not want to tackle long stories without the ability to mark stopping points.

In the end, although not perfect, views count can still give us an idea of how popular a story is. If one chapter has 50 and another one has 500, I'm pretty sure the latter one was better received.

Views inflation is similar to reputation inflation. Those active in the chat rooms rack them up in a way someone simply sharing their work can't. In the end, the willingness of members to engage by leaving comments is a better indication of interest than any number. 

2 hours ago, Geron Kees said:

I did note that the numbers posted by the stories are 'views', not reads at all. 

And you're right, Tim, that chapter counts make all the difference. 

Hits, views etc. measure only that. They dont measure quality, enjoyment or engagement really. I am not really into stats...here or work. In the end i need to write. I need it to satisfy my standards and the story i want to tell. I only hope there will be a few people who will enjoy it. 

Some people like numbers and so this will be important to them. And that's okay.

I am not particularly number conscious, but I am detail oriented, and the difference in the numbers I saw is what made me comment here in the first place.. For instance, Myr states that 'Story views and Story stats should be 'the same' roughly on stories posted after Jan 2018'. Okay. I have a story posted ALL after January 2018. On the story page it has 20,000 views. In the stats, it has 10,000 views. That is nowhere near 'roughly' the same, it's half as much. That is a large enough difference to leave me guessing, and make me wonder how the difference occurred. It's that simple.

I'm in the same boat.

19 hours ago, Myr said:

I should have been clear and stated that when it was all done, it should be roughly the same.

As for why it is different at the moment, I would hazard to guess that "Story Stats" is the Story, ie the Table of Contents + whatever chapter data has been processed. (and since Jan 2018)

The story views stat listed on the story is Table of Contents + each chapter. 

I'll have to check with the programmer, who is 16 hours ahead of my timezone.  He might have been literal and compiled all of the "Story" stats first, which in the system, means the table of contents.  And is compiling chapters for individual chapter stats that add the story total views in later. I don't know since the only story of mine that has chapter stats complete is one of the first entered in the system, so the views are way off on virtue of being mostly before Jan 2018.

I can say that 7,150,000 total views of 26,700,000 have been processed.  There is quite the intensive amount of grinding going on in the background and we're trying not to bog down the site as this stuff is processed.

None of this is simple.  Nor is trying to explain it to a mixed audience ranging from technical novice to college professor.  

Oh. Okay. Never mind.

17 hours ago, Cia said:

I love some of the comments about what people think positively/constructively or why they might use the stats to learn something new. Pros and Cons, questions about the hows and whys, those are great. Discussion is great. Comments about how useless they are to members or else they should be completely changed... not so helpful. I'll say it, as I've said it before, every time Myr has asked the programmer to come up with a new feature or data point, it's meant to be helpful to authors for extremely thoughtful and planned reasons. And saying "It'd be cool if we could see this" might come across better as a suggestion than "This isn't helpful, the only thing I want to know is this instead" criticism/complaint which might not actually be a possibility for our programmer due to capabilities or cost. 

Remember, stories are marketed to readers using the meta data on the story detail page. Categories, tags, description, etc... are all settings that can be used or changed to feature the story to readers based on what authors think readers will want the most. How many people actually track sales/reading trends and use elements geared to gain readers by including those? Quite a few actually. Stats like these views can help show which stories on GA might have elements in common or are the most popular with readers (GA readers tend to like Coming of Age/Coming Out fiction, and, yes, sex sells). Or, as Myr said that fits right in with that, what chapters are more popular (and why?) based on the number of views as well can help authors decide on content they might like to explore writing. 

And, above all, these stats aren't something that are forced on authors as a new setting that changes the system, or feedback received, or adds steps to submission process, or even is a Stories element you have to use. It's just one more way we're trying to help those authors who care to find out what readers view, make some inferences, do some testing and stretch their writing skills while maybe gaining some new readers. We want to help those who want it and not bother those who don't. So just don't use it if it's not for you and enjoy it if it is. We hope you will get the insight you want/need. 

I do understand all that. I am not a number follower as far as needing them to judge how popular a story may be. I get that from comments, likes, and reviews.  The page hit figures are only of interest from a traffic perspective, which does interest me. I make use of this sort of data in the work I do, and I am used to having good figures I can rely upon. I think I was a little bit stunned to see the differences in the two data sets, which is extreme, at the least.

But Myr has said that the data is still being tallied, and so that makes all the difference. This is still a work in progress. So I am going to go back over here, sit down, and stop worrying about these numbers completely. Thank you.

I am puzzled that the story with the 2nd highest number of views at 65000+ is a single chapter story. Even more so when I look at the actual story and it shows a figure of just over 2000.

How can such a difference be possible I wonder?