Isn't the spike on my stats a false positive?
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My blog is not very popular, the contents are pretty personal after all. Anyway, I visited it in an open incognito window of Google Chrome (I’m a web developer and use it quite a lot to quickly switch sessions) and reviewed some captions in the images I posted. When I switched to the non-incognito window, I got a notification about a spike in my stats apparently because each image I viewed contributed to the visitor count. Is it meant to be that way?
If it is, please ignore this question. It’s just that it could give users a false sense of high traffic.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Yes, your views in the Chrome incognito mode would count. Also views to your website when you’re not logged in, with any browser.
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If you visit your site when not logged in your page views count – it you have a low traffic blog you will get a notification with a spike – I have a site that is all but abandoned – maybe 2 or 3 page views a week on average – I got a notice today about the 64 views in one hour – one person visited my post on a boating event
the notice is normal and easier to get a notice on a low traffic blog
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Yes, I know how the typical counting works. Maybe I was not able to make myself clear. I visited just ONE blog post that has several image galleries in it. The question is, does an image click have to be counted as a “visit”? Even if all the images belong to a single post?
If I got 1 blog post that contains a gallery of 12 images and 1 reader chose to view the gallery, do you think I should really get 13 views instead of just one?
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The question is, does an image click have to be counted as a “visit”? Even if all the images belong to a single post?
Actually, that doesn’t occur with my stats. I’ve often seen one page view credit for a visit where dozens of clicks are credited. I wish I had the problem you describe.
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Correction:
I must be tired. No, you are right. Each image viewed results in a page view. It is the gallery post or page which will only receive one page view.If I got 1 blog post that contains a gallery of 12 images and 1 reader chose to view the gallery, do you think I should really get 13 views instead of just one?
I haven’t really considered whether they should or shouldn’t be counted this way. Just glad that they are.
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I’m glad someone was able to verify that it actually happens. I think most bloggers would not care about how the counters work though. It’s just that when you do some work on tracking apps and data analysis, you can’t help but get curious. It will make the site stats quite unrealistic and less reliable if I may add.
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It will make the site stats quite unrealistic and less reliable if I may add.
I see your point. What I find unsettling, though, is that individual gallery images, which are only supporting the page content in many instances, often receive far more page views and, therefore attain higher page view value, than the page.
I have pages with dozens of images. It is not unusual for that page to receive fewer views in the course of the day than any individual image in the gallery. The extreme occurs when you get one page view for the page containing the gallery and 50 or 100 total for the individual image pages.
I’d prefer the credit go to the gallery page or post. That’s my feature. If images were my features, I’d be on Flickr, Photobucket, etc., not WordPress.
When I visit inactive websites of mine to test various things, such as themes and features, I find that I’m accumulating views. I’m logged into the account and racking up page views just testing themes and new or unfamiliar features. I remember a time not so long ago when you didn’t receive credit for visiting your own posts and pages. I think this was changed a while back, but I’d forgotten about it until I began testing features on inactive sites.
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I’d prefer the credit go to the gallery page or post. That’s my feature. If images were my features, I’d be on Flickr, Photobucket, etc., not WordPress.
True. And now reading your reply kind of gave me the answer.
Maybe the way search engines function has something to do with it? For instance, if you search an image through Google and click on one result, you’ll see a “View Image” and a “Visit Page” button. Since the user can view just the image it’s understandable that a credit goes to the image. And since search engines cannot make out the connections between images and posts on their own, the posts don’t get credits.
However, yeah, it would be nice if the post would also get credit. Writing sensible content is not easy.
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Since the user can view just the image it’s understandable that a credit goes to the image.
Yes, and I guess it looks like I will probably have to let go of the wish that the post containing the image rather than the image itself receives the page view credit for that reason, and for a vastly more important reason, in my opinion, involving another factor which would conflict with that expectation.
I want and I expect every embedded image to open in its own attachment page when you left click on it , or right-click and select “open link in a new window” — as they did for most of the first six years of my WordPress blogging experience, until a very recent change — and each gallery image to open in its own attachment page when you right-click and select again “open in a new window,” I also would prefer to have the post or page containing the viewed image, rather than the image, receive the page view credit.
I intend to start a thread soon on why embedded images in posts and sometimes gallery images, when right-clicked upon and opened in a new window, are showing up disconnected from the website on black backgrounds, without the attachment page I’ve always seen before, an attachment page which has always included the following:
1. Website name, which is also a link to the homepage
2. Website header, which is also a link to the homepage (on my theme at least)
3. Header navigation bar, which in my case includes a drop-down index to all the pages, which happen to contain 97% of my website.
4. Page title — the title of the page containing the gallery, which is also a link to that page
5. All of the above links lead to either the front page, or a full-page display in which the full sidebar is displayed.
6. Edit tab
7. Post or page author
8. Comment option
9. Date the image was published on the website
10. Links to both the previous and the subsequent image chronologically
11. Sharing linksAll of that is now gone when you open into a new window any of the several thousand images on my site!
The following is a gallery image attachment page which has all 11 of the above features: http://songbook1.wordpress.com/fx/albertina-rasch-dancers/albertina-rasch-dancers-1935-broadway-melody-of-1936-cs-bull-frederic-brun/
Each of the several thousand embedded images in my posts and pages which used to open into such attachment pages, now open onto black background nowhere lands, completely disconnected from the rest of the site, and without a trace of a link to the website except for the image URL. Here’s an example: http://songbook1.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/perfidia-jimmy-dorsey-1.jpg.
When I first complained a few months ago about the disappearance of the attachment pages which had always displayed for the previous six years when you left-clicked on embedded images (or right-clicked and selected “open in a new window”), the response I received from a WordPress staff person was that he or she couldn’t duplicate the effect. Lately I find it’s increasingly happening with gallery images as well.
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I want and I expect every embedded image to open in its own attachment page when you left click on it, or right-click and select “open link in a new window” …
For me, on my websites, the only exceptions should be those images which link to internal posts or pages, or externally. A relatively small percentage of my images do so.
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I cannot speak for WordPress but as a web developer myself I’m aware of issues that one encounters in creating a platform like WordPress. Different browsers and channels may handle image clicks differently and WordPress cannot control this. They probably tried, hence the experience you had before. But since these channels evolve on their own, continuously adjusting to each evolution would be costly. That can be a reason why they dropped the features you wanted.
Or maybe they did not even drop it. Modern browsers may have just started handling things differently.
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