just curious: what counts as a page "view" around here and makes the count rise

[rick957]

Not at all an important question, but something I've always wondered:  when the number of "views" for a thread at Elliquiy goes up, does that actually mean that a human being looked at the thread with his or her browser, or could it also mean that some non-human, automated indexing thing accessed the thread?

Thanks for any responses.  :)

[Beguile's Mistress]

Any time you go to a new page it counts.  Refreshing after a certain period of time counts, too, as does posting in the thread after you've been there for a while.

[rick957]

Interesting, I didn't know about some of that.  I'm still curious about the searchbot thing, though; are some of these recorded "views" coming from non-humans?  That's probably the part I'm most curious about, because it would suggest that certain threads get far fewer human views than it would appear.

For example, out of the 14 views for this thread so far, I assume one or two were me; one was you, BeMi.  Does that mean 11 other humans looked at this thread?  Or could it be that no one else has actually looked at it yet?  Either situation has ramifications that interest me, but they're totally different situations.

[Oreo]

:-\ I just looked too, but have no idea if the bots count when they read a page.

[Beguile's Mistress]

I don't know if I'm remembering this correctly but I think searchbots scan data but don't actually view a page.  Don't quote me though because it's been a long time since I had that conversation.

[Vekseid]

Bots will count, usually.

A page view isn't counted if 1) No additional posts have been made and 2) The user is viewing it in the same session, which can expire after several minutes of inactivity if you don't have a post window open.

[rick957]

Bots will count, usually.

How interesting.  That was my guess, but I didn't have the technical knowledge to know for sure.  Thanks for the help.

Follow-up question:  does anyone know roughly how many bots typically hit each thread, and roughly how often they do so? 

For example, I've noticed that something like 6 views show up almost as soon as a thread is started; is it likely that those are all bots?  Similarly, almost every recent thread seems to get a certain number of hits every day, even after everyone has stopped posting -- does this mean that bots cause the view count to keep constantly rising, by 6 views per day or something like that?

I find the issue interesting because if my suppositions are true, then a thread with say, 100 views is not a thread that has been seen by 100 people; instead it's probably been seen by far fewer than that, especially if the thread is old and inactive.  A thread with 10 or 12 supposed "views" may have been seen by only one or two humans.

[Oreo]

You could run a test and ask people to please post every time they look at the thread in the name of scientific curiosity.

[rick957]

What a good idea.  :)  I may try that sometime, unless Vekseid or somebody else solves the mystery.  I've always assumed when writing stuff at Elliquiy that I was addressing maybe a dozen people or more, at least, but now I'm thinking that maybe all that time I was just talking to my RP partner, or worse yet, talking to myself!  Hehe.  What a ridiculous thought.

[Oreo]

*cough* A lot of us are stalkers that slip in and read threads then disappear into the night.

[rick957]

See I'm fine with the idea of people reading without necessarily saying anything, though.  But, to me at least, there's a big difference between addressing a sizable audience of people, versus a tiny handful of people, versus just one specific person, versus nobody at all, versus a crowd made up of freakin' computers.  Actually I guess those last two are pretty much the same thing, aren't they?

As narcissistic as I am, I could probably talk to you all day, Oreo, but I have no interest in talking to Google or Yahoo or whatever.  Bing.  :)

[Elina]

This is interesting.  I should probably know the answer to this, but can the bots access the private area of the forum for approved members only, or is this information only applicable to the public areas?

[JackWhite]

This is interesting.  I should probably know the answer to this, but can the bots access the private area of the forum for approved members only, or is this information only applicable to the public areas?

If I've seen the topics around the Who's online thing correctly I think that bots can only access the public areas.

[Star Safyre]

If I've seen the topics around the Who's online thing correctly I think that bots can only access the public areas.

This.  Also I've tried to search for quoted lines that I knew where in private portions of the site and there were no results.

[Elina]

Thanks!

[rick957]

If I've seen the topics around the Who's online thing correctly I think that bots can only access the public areas.

Very helpful additional info, thanks for posting.  If I'm understanding correctly, this means that in members-only areas, each "view" indicates that a human being clicked on the thread in some way, which is nice to know.  Somebody chime in if I'm still confused about that, but I think I got it.  :)

Where's the "topics around the Who's online thing"?  I haven't run across those and might find them interesting to read.

Personally I suppose it's the RPs that I care about most in terms of wondering whether or not anyone else reads them; I like the idea that once in a while a non-participant has a look-see.  I like to read other people's RPs sometimes myself.

BTW I'm still curious if anybody knows how many bots hit each thread, and how often, in case anybody happens along who might know.  :)

[Elina]

I don't know the answer to your questions, but I can tell you that as a general rule of thumb, my more followed RPs will have about 3 times the views per post than the ones that nobody else is reading.

[Miss Lilly]

Rick, if you want to view Users Online, scroll down to the bottom of the main page, and you'll see a list of everyone who's online, or who has been online in the past 30 minutes. If you click on the blue text which tells you how many guests, users, buddies, spiders and hidden are currently online, it'll take you to a page where you can see what topics people are viewing.

[rick957]

Thanks Water Lilly  :)  Actually I knew about the Users Online thing already, I like to snoop there and see what threads everybody's looking at.  I didn't know there had been some discussions somewhere about it though.

[DarklingAlice]

Actually I am not so sure about the private portions being immune to bots, perhaps there is just something preventing them from turning up in search engines?

For example, I've noticed that something like 6 views show up almost as soon as a thread is started;

I've noticed this too. Exactly six views tend to instantly turn up on all new threads that I can remember making. No matter what part of the site they are on. I wonder where those are coming from? Cause they certainly aren't people (unless I have some very dedicated stalkers...)

[Star Safyre]

Well, when I use Who's Online to check what the spiders and guests are looking at, all I can see them seeing are the public side posts, nothing on the inside.

[Elina]

Well, when I use Who's Online to check what the spiders and guests are looking at, all I can see them seeing are the public side posts, nothing on the inside.

I have noticed the same thing, so I'm pretty sure bots don't access the private parts of the forum.  As far as the 6 views thing, I have actually been keeping an eye out on this since this thread and am not seeing that phenomenon, so it may actually be views on your threads (including your own view when you go in to bookmark or set up your notification or whatever.)