Statistics

[Luca E]

Something I don't understand. The stats on my story show 1332 views on the story (at the top where you have the title and description). On the chapters adding up the numbers it totals to about half that number of views. What does that mean? Does it mean six or seven hundred people clicked on the story, read the description, and didn't want to read it? I can understand that could be what's happening because the published story list gives only title, author, and chapter, so readers don't know what genre of story it is until they click. Maybe there should be more prominence given to the stories published, including genre, than the large amount of front page given to the forum or site blurb. Just my opinion, but when I come to a story site I like to see stories, not forum or other blurb, that ought to be background stuff?

[Cia]

Hello Luca,

    Yes, the views on the story are the number of times the meta data page is viewed. Keep in mind that includes every single time you've gone to it, I have, another staff member, plus readers or visitors, etc... It's one of many of the different types of data you have available to you to help track what is interesting to readers. As you get more stories, you may learn that you need a better description, or more accurate tags, or sub-genres, or that people tend to jump right to your chapters... it all varies. Longer stories tend to average out views more accurately than short fiction, I've found. My long running flash fiction weekly work has a narrower range of chapter views to total story views, but I have a short-one piece that is at an almost 50% ratio of actual chapter views to story views.

  As to our layout and the focus on stories, GA is first, and foremost, a community of authors and readers. The landing page for someone who searches for GA isn't actually the forums, it's the home page (link here). If you pay attention, you'll notice the first few links, and in fact the majority of the links, on that page focus on content for our Stories area, not the Forums or Clubs. However, the popular authors here on GA who have the most readers? Those are the ones who are active on the site forums, and clubs, and who engage with readers and each other all over the site. You'll get out of GA what you put into the site as a whole, because as much as we are all here for the great stories, we love the rest of it that brings us together too. 

As an aside, this blog which is a fun Word of the Day that Myr posts, also points out just how many visitors are going to Stories compared to the rest of the site. 

 

[Myr]

12 hours ago, Luca E said:

Maybe there should be more prominence given to the stories published, including genre, than the large amount of front page given to the forum or site blurb. Just my opinion, but when I come to a story site I like to see stories, not forum or other blurb, that ought to be background stuff?

Your suggestion does not work for search engines.  I've had 20 years experience trying that and immediately disappearing from search to prove it.  Ergo, the Stories link provides Story focus while the Home link provides searchable content for search engines that allows Gay Authors to be findable in search. Click "Stories" on the red menu.   3/4 of the traffic at all times of day are in the Story Archive.

 

13 hours ago, Luca E said:

Just my opinion, but when I come to a story site I like to see stories, not forum or other blurb, that ought to be background stuff?

As @Cia said, we are a writing community as well as story site.  If you are concerned only about stories, bookmark the "Stories" link and just use that.  It is set up to be functional as the homepage, less the issue with Google delisting us when we do it.

[Luca E]

16 hours ago, Cia said:

people tend to jump right to your chapters

Correct me if I am wrong, but before I joined the site as a member and used to just hang around reading stories I thought that when a new chapter published you could click the chapter and jump straight there. That has changed hasn't it? Because the new chapter links take you to the story and you then need to click the chapter, so of course the story page views will be increased with every new chapter published.

[ReaderPaul]

11 hours ago, Myr said:

As @Cia said, we are a writing community as well as story site.  If you are concerned only about stories, bookmark the "Stories" link and just use that.  It is set up to be functional as the homepage, less the issue with Google delisting us when we do it.

One of the things I really like about GA and two other sites are the forums associated with the sites.  While the forum here is really easy to read and use and find things, the other two sites I like with forums are a bit more challenging.  I enjoy reading about how authors came up with story ideas, and how authors interact with the readers.  My favorite authors here interact with the readers in a happy manner (or at least it so seems) and I tend to shy away from authors who are gruff and brusque with their fans.

@Myr and @Cia and the other site admins and moderators do a great job of keeping things going.  Sure, from time to time there are glitches, but overall it is quite well done.  

Do I wish some things were arranged in a slightly different manner?  Sometimes, but overall this is a great place to read.  I do miss, however, the ability to go directly to a new chapter when I am caught up with the chapters in a particular story.  But it is not a deal-breaker.  GA staff and authors, thank you!

[Cia]

On the forum sidebar the link does go to the story instead of being both a chapter and story link, you're right. You have the option to also follow a story, which should get you a notification that will take you to the chapter. 

[Myr]

15 hours ago, Luca E said:

I thought that when a new chapter published you could click the chapter and jump straight there. That has changed hasn't it?

 

14 hours ago, ReaderPaul said:

I do miss, however, the ability to go directly to a new chapter when I am caught up with the chapters in a particular story.

 

9 hours ago, Cia said:

On the forum sidebar the link does go to the story instead of being both a chapter and story link, you're right.

 

Ah!  That's actually a bug... There should be a chapter link there.