Downloads
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How can there be (as there are) downloads without visitors and without clicks?
To download one must first visit the site and then click on the linkThe blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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What do you mean by “downloads” how are you recording that activity yourself to compare to stats?
In another threads, you asked:
How can someone view a site in the Reader? And how can they do it without their views adding to the stats?
Any WordPress.com user can subscribe to sites in the Reader and receive new posts, those views are not tracked, because they are not viewing your site.
Also, please keep in mind that anyone running an ad or tracker blocking will not be tracked either.
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Gura mie eu
Fastyr mie
(I got these from Wikipedia specially).‘What do I mean by downloads?’
Let me explain. My site is essentially a catalogue of books, booklets and articles that readers can read or downloaded or printed free of charge.
Each book(let) appears with its name, a brief description, and a filename ending with .PDF. If someone clicks on the filename, the file itself (in full) appears on the browser where it can be either read, or by pressing the right buttons downloaded to the reader’s computer (as a file), or printed out.
When a visitor to the site clicks, the fact that he has clicked and the file he has clicked on will appear in the stats. Latterly the file he has clicked on will also appear in the stats under your new heading, ‘downloads’ (which I much appreciate), even if he has not actually downloaded it but merely clicked on it — that does not worry me, I accept. [If he clicks on a link, e.g. to another site, instead of a file name, it will appear under clicks, but obviously not under downloads.]I have no other way of recording downloads except if I do it myself as a test from another computer as a visitor to the site without logging in, and this has confirmed the above as I have just explained.
Since the appearance of the downloads section in stats (about two weeks ago) which also works retrospectively to check dowloads some weeks back, downloads have been appearing even on days when there are no visitors recorded in stats and no clicks. I cannot understand how anyone can download from the site without visiting it.
You (and someone previous) say that it is possible to visit the site via the reader and the visit does not appear in stats. They are viewing the site but not visiting or vice versa? In that case the stats do not show me all the visits/views but only those that visit via the URL instead of via the reader, and the number of visits and clicks shown in stats is meaningless.
[I also have a very specific problem connected with this, which I will leave for the moment until we get the main thing sorted out.]
I do appreciate that someone can get the URL of a book and then download directly, but they have to visit the site first to get the URL. I tested by putting in a new article and within five minutes it was downloaded with no visitors or clicks on the site that day! There was no time to visit the site, get the URL, and then download it directly, and anyway nobody visited the site.
I look forward to your explanation.
P.S. I hope the Manx at the beginning is spelt correctly. Please correct me if it is wrong.
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Hi, it sounds like someone is viewing a direct link to the PDF rather than viewing the site itself. A direct download doesn’t get recorded in your stats the same way a site visit would.
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This is a bug on our end. I’ve passed it along to the team working on the stats page. We are working on it.
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Liz,
Thank you. I will not meanwhile detail the specific problem (a highly specialised file of interest to very few being downloaded every day once, twice or three times), as it is probably part of it all, and will wait to hear from you or see what happens.
Thanks again. -
Thanks halilac, knowing that much helps too.
And sorry I missed this bit:
I tested by putting in a new article and within five minutes it was downloaded with no visitors or clicks on the site that day! There was no time to visit the site, get the URL, and then download it directly, and anyway nobody visited the site.
I’m wondering then if it’s coming from a feed, or from an email notification. We’ll keep digging into this for you though.
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Our stats team is saying all of these would count as a download without a site view:
– if you view the file to check it after uploading
– if you view the file in the media library
– if a follower gets an email notification, and clicks the file from that
– if someone clicks a file link on an RSS
Even if a search engine sees the file link on a site map and views it, that would count as a download without a site view.
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Thank you Supernovia for your reply.
From what you write together with the results of my tests, the following becomes apparent:
1. If a visitor clicks on a filename (even without downloading), it will appear on the stats page as a click and also as a download.
2. If I myself, when logged in (and not as a visitor), click on a filename (even without downloading) it will appear on the stats page as a download, but not as a click.
3. If I view a file in the media library it will count, not as you say as a download but as a miracle, because I cannot view a file in the media library. I tried.
4. A follower can click a file from an email — I only have one follower, who has not done that.
5. Anyone can click on the URL and it will show on the stats page as a download but not as a click or visitor, but he must first get the URL.
6. If Bing or Google or one of those sees the filename and views it (with or without clicking? – not clear) it will count as a download but not as a click.
7. If someone clicks a filename on an RSS whatever that is, it will show as a download but not as a click or visitor.NOW ADD THE FOLLOWING
8. Every few days I receive a long list of about thirty downloads. I have not checked each one individually but they appear to be the same list each time.
9. Three of these do not exist. They have been deleted from the media library long ago but still appear. They have been updated but the update (same name or different) appears along with the original that does nor exist.
10. One of these appears every single day on the list with 3, 4 or even 5 downloads of it that day! Nobody is mad enough to do this.
11. The conclusion from these last three (8,9,10) is that some sort of what you call an RSS feed (whatever that is) or robot or something similar is doing this automatically,
either (i) by being programmed and scheduled deliberately,
or (ii) by being somehow stuck.CONCLUSIONS
A] The download list on the stats page is utterly meaningless and absolutely and completely useless.
B] This casts doubts on the stats page altogether, which may be totally unreliable.
C] Evidence for this. I once visited a friend in his office, and showed him all my sites on his computer, i.e. he visited them all. However no visitors were recorded for that day on my stats page! This was some time ago and as an isolated case I let it pass.IN BRIEF, unless drastic changes are made, the stats page is a waste of time.
I await your reply. -
NEW ADDITION
12. I have just uploaded three new files, and did NOT click to check, taking a chance. I then went to the stats page, and they were already marked as downloads!
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It is now three weeks and I have had no reaction to my long comment of Sep. 23rd.
Are they still working on it? If so I have patience.
If not, why have they abandoned it? Do they agree that the stats page is useless?Meanwhile the long lists have stopped , except when I added new file-links WITHOUT CLICKING except on about three of them.
BUT one file that does not exist, long since deleted, appears as between one and five downloads EVERY DAY and others also non-existent appear from time to time as downloads.The position is ridiculous.
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Thank you for the detailed information, @halilac. The download stats is a pretty new feature and our developers are still working to make it better. The fact that deleted files are counted as downloads in the stats is part of the bug we mentioned before. It has been reported and is been worked on.
I once visited a friend in his office, and showed him all my sites on his computer, i.e. he visited them all. However no visitors were recorded for that day on my stats page!
This is unrelated to the bug we’re discussing here but if you notice issues with stats in general, let us know. In case you’re curious about how our stats work, you can visit this page:
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Have they still not found and sorted out the bug?
Deleted files of mine still appear as downloads on the stats page, and one appears nearly every day, with up to EIGHT downloads in a day. Today so far it has been downloaded, according to stats, seven times!
It is about six weeks, if they are still working on it, O.K. but I suspect they may have given up. -
We do not give up on bugs, do not worry. The bugs and issues are being worked on in order of their importance so it may take some time until this particular one gets fixed.
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I have found something very peculiar. Do you have TWO media libraries?
I mentioned a deleted file that appears as a download up to eight (now nine) times a day. I have checked and rechecked the media library in the normal way (through the page edit screen to Add-Media) and it is not there, its replacement with a slightly different name is there.
However, to make sure, I discovered that it is possible to reach the media library through something called WPadmins, and there it WAS there, undeleted! (so was the replacement, correct.) I checked and rechecked, both ways, several times, and eventually deleted it from the admins library. This partly explains what had been happening, but why are there two different media libraries? Do I have to check and delete from both libraries each time I want to delete and insert an update?All this applies to one file. Others that have been deleted yet appear from time to time as downloads do not appear in either of the two libraries.
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This partly explains what had been happening, but why are there two different media libraries? Do I have to check and delete from both libraries each time I want to delete and insert an update?
The WP-admin is an older version of our dashboard so, basically, whatever you see in your dashboard will also be visible in WP-admin. These are just two different ways of accessing your content. It’s very odd what you report, about the file still being undeleted in WP-admin. Have you checked that the link does not work anymore?
In case it still loads the file, let me know the link and I’ll remove it from the cache.
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The WP-admin is an older version of our dashboard so, basically, whatever you see in your dashboard will also be visible in WP-admin.
I am not clear about this. The wpadmin says `dashboard’ and is the only dashboard that I have anywhere. I have tried in the past unsuccessfully for WP to mark something to press to reach the dashboard, it is all very confusing.
I deleted the file before posting my comment, so there is no link to test. However as it has been appearing on the download list nearly every day, we will see if it now stops. If not I will send you the last part of the url as shown in the download list.Before deleting from the wpadmin library I did check very carefully several times that it was there and was not in the edit-page library. I gather from you that this should not happen normally, they should be the same.
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Here are two deleted files that are still downloaded: (There are others, but these two came today, 10.11.19)
/2015/08/kk-e.pdf
/2015/08/vwl-dt-e4.pdf
[Beware, the first one does exist with a later date, but not the 2015 version]
I cannot give the full link as it no longer exists.
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