Exploring the Mystery of High Thread Views

[jackmell]

Hi,

I've noticed recently, threads, maybe not all of them, quickly increase in views. Take for example a thread I created just a few hours ago. It already has 225 views. I've noticed that elsewhere. Take homework help, all 200,300,400 views. Take general math, all 200,300,400 or so views, Calculus and Analysis, same several hundred views, DE, same thing. I can't imagine that's all people viewing it. Isn't that strange? Is there some kind of worm or something reading all our threads automatically? I haven't done a rigorous analysis of the matter and was just wondering if anyone else noticed this behavior?

Thanks,
Jack

 

[I like Serena]

Yep. I've sometimes monitored the view count, seeing it go up to 10 or 20, which probably are real viewers, and then jump up a couple of hundred.

I think it has to do with automatic mechanisms like google spiders and rss feeds.
And then when someone googles something it gives a hit on the page pushing up the count further.

You'll see there's a somewhat linear relation between view count and thread age.
So when you see a thread with a new post that has a ridiculuous high view count, you already know it's a necropost.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I think a lot of it is spiders and general searches/hits from google however there are also thousands of active members that tend to live in blocks around the world. For example: I live in the UK so as I go to bed PF seems to liven up as everyone on the western side of the Atlantic starts coming home from work. It's also funny to note that there is a similar flurry from about midday when those same people check and post in the morning. I haven't noticed other flurries because I think (though I may be utterly wrong) that non-American membership seems more spread out across the globe.

 

[jackmell]

Ok guys. Didn't realize it was that much spider-viewing. Seems a little deceptive then that the view-count really doesn't even come close to reflecting how many real people are reading it.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Spiders aren't counted. Thread views are updated once an hour. Consider we have a lot of traffic coming in from Google searches. Any new threads are likely looked at by many of the few hundred members who log in any given hour. Nothing abnormal happening here.

 

[ThomasT]

Spiders aren't counted. Thread views are updated once an hour. Consider we have a lot of traffic coming in from Google searches. Any new threads are likely looked at by many of the few hundred members who log in any given hour. Nothing abnormal happening here.

I agree. PF is big in terms of both membership (~350k) and Google appearance (in my limited experience, and pertaining to non-member viewership). So, a few hundred views of any thread in a few hours, by real people, doesn't seem at all inordinate.

 

[jackmell]

Ok then. Thank you.