Why do the shares on a particular post not mirror the visits?

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  harrisharrison · Member · Aug 25, 2014 at 8:41 pm

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  Hi. I have a particular post that seems to be shared a lot but it never gets any visits. I don’t understand how anyone would want to share it if they haven’t read it. Why is there such a discrepancy? Here’s the post: http://harrissports.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/wake-up-and-smell-the-deep-heat-its-the-london-marathon/

  Thanks

  Nick

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  gracejiyoung · Member · Aug 26, 2014 at 9:46 pm

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  Hi Nick,

  Looking at that post specifically, you have a total of 75 shares and 168 views, which doesn’t seem out of the ordinary.

  As for reading the post, your email notifications are set to full text. Meaning that readers may have read your site, but not actually “viewed” your site because they didn’t visit your actual site.

  Another reason why the view count may not be as accurate is when readers are viewing your post within the WordPress.com Reader. That will not count as a view on your site as they are technically not clicking into your site as well.

  Let me know if you have any questions with this!

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  harrisharrison · Member · Aug 26, 2014 at 10:29 pm

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  Hi Grace.

  That sort of explains it – thanks! I’m still slightly curious as to the ratio of shares to views. Today my share count has gone up by about 20 but I’ve only had 15 or so views. I can understand if the people sharing my posts haven’t technically viewed them but wouldn’t you expect at least a small spike in traffic from all those shares?

  What do you think?

  Thanks

  Nick

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  gracejiyoung · Member · Aug 26, 2014 at 10:36 pm

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  Hi Nick,

  One thing I would be aware of is that if they go to your homepage readers are able to read the posts without actually going into the specific post link. For example, here is your homepage:

  http://harrissports.wordpress.com/

  This is the link to your first post:

  http://harrissports.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/the-real-reason-louis-van-gaal-made-that-substitution/

  If your readers click onto your homepage and read a post from there and share it directly from there, the share count will go up by one, but the actual post link view will not. A reader would actually have to click on the title of the post and go to the second link for the view count of that actual post to go up.

  However, it’s still very much possible that people are sharing the post via social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. without reading the post. Why? I honestly have no clue. Some may just like the title (I’m obviously just guessing here).