Inaccurate analytics
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Hi all-
My last three blog posts have shown much, much lower than usual traffic according to my WordPress Analytics. While the website shows 40-50 Facebook shares per post, plus dozens of likes on Facebook itself, and many friends personally telling me they read the posts, WordPress is showing only a few people reading each post. Any idea what’s going on?
Thanks!
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi there,
Your stats look normal to me. I see 64 views on your site for today only, 57 of those on your most recent post. Where are you seeing only a few?
The fact that a post has been shared 50 times on Facebook doesn’t mean 50 people visited your site to read the post. Facebook allows people to like, share and comment on links without ever leaving Facebook to actually read the linked post.
Additionally email-only followers and people who follow your site’s RSS feed with a different service can read your posts without ever visiting your site and generating a view stat. We can only record views for people who actually views your site in their browser or who reads a post in the WordPress.com Reader.
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Thanks for the response. Recent posts beforehand with a similar number of likes and shares on Facebook got hundreds more views. In addition, as someone who works in social media for a living, if something has been shared 50 times it is very reasonable to expects several hundred people to open the link as it’s being shared with several thousand people on Facebook, many of whom are actively liking it. Most people who open a link on Facebook do not even like it. Most of my readers do so through Facebook so I don’t think the RSS factor is at play. Overall, the stats seem out of character if you compare this week with the previous month. Can you do a diagnostic and check what might be going on?
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Views on a site fluctuate. I’ve already checked that views are being logged correctly on your site. The explanation for the lower stats is that fewer people are viewing your site. Just because you get several thousand views one week it doesn’t guarantee you’ll get the same the next.
If anything is unusual, it’s your views for August and the first two weeks of September – it looks like you had a big spike in views for a few weeks, but now it’s going back to the levels it was in July.
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That’s not the issue- my blogs are being shared on third party websites and getting the same amount (or more) of likes on Facebook, I’m getting feedback from many dozens of friends who are reading them- completely in proportion to the 400-500 view posts over the past few months (not including the two or three that exceeded that). The numbers do not add up and I’m very upset at your dismissive tone, even if it’s not your intention. Something is not right- based on simple Facebook algorithms, if a post is shared 40+ times, there’s no way only a couple people are seeing each share. Facebook posts typically organically reach several hundred people a piece, at least a few of whom will click on it. Are there other explanations possible?
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Right now, 21 people have shared tonight’s post on Facebook and according to the analytics 23 people have viewed the blog. This is absolutely ridiculous – there is NEVER a 1:1 ratio of Facebook shares to link clicks, which is pretty much the case according to these analytics. Most people who view a post on Facebook do not share it, as even a cursory glance at your own Facebook page should reveal, meaning the views should be much higher than shares. I’m feeling frustrated- I know you’re trying to help, I just would appreciate you considering some other avenues to check what’s going on because these numbers do not add up and I have a digital PR agency for a living. Thanks in advance for any help!
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People seeing the post on Facebook does not mean they visit your site to view it there. Our stats don’t track how many people see, like or share it on Facebook, only how many people physically load the post on your site in their browsers.
You can see how many people actually visit your site by clicking the link in Facebook in the Referrer section of your stats – 348 for yesterday, 9 the day before. But note that we’re not able to track referrals if visitors are blocking that kind of tracking in their browsers, so there might be more Facebook referrals we cannot detect.
It’s reasonable to assume that the more people who see it on Facebook, the more the number of people who click on it, but it’s still an assumption. Not a guarantee.
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Interesting- how might one block the tracking in their browser? You’re saying someone could in fact open the link on Facebook but it not be recorded in the Stats due to the way in which they access the blog? Thnx
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Many browser privacy extensions prevents the browser from sending http headers to a site when a link is clicked. And with some browsers, like Firefox, you can even edit the browser configuration file directly so the browser itself blocks referral information.
This won’t prevent the view from being logged, but it will prevent us from detecting that the view originated from Facebook.
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