Question about viewcounts & the browse algorithm. - GC Forums
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Question about viewcounts & the browse algorithm.
Hey there, I have some questions about some stuff.
1) How are viewcounts tracked on this site? For example, if the number says I have 58 views, does that mean that 58 people have viewed my comic, or have 58 pages been viewed? Or perhaps it's something else.
2) What determines where someones comic lies in the browse section? is it the number of people subscribed to it? is it the number of views? Is it influenced by time like on Reddit?
3) Elsewhere on the forums you guys have said that you're planning on implementing "advanced analytic tools" what will these look like? Depending on how detailed they are this could be another point in favor of using GlobalComix over other hosts as a creator. (Tapas & Webtoons both have very primitive analytics. I recently tried using itch.io and it was like I had a magical crystal ball comparatively, but itch.io isn't a platform that's comic-specific.)
Thanks :V
Hi @NiahMakesStuff!
Let's dig in :)
We track one page read per person per 5 minutes. Meaning, if a person reads a page, then reloads it over and over, it will only add one read every 5 mins. The view counts you're seeing on releases are page reads counts.1) How are viewcounts tracked on this site? For example, if the number says I have 58 views, does that mean that 58 people have viewed my comic, or have 58 pages been viewed? Or perhaps it's something else.
Every hour, we tally up page reads, and summarize them on 4 different levels:
A) Artist/Creator Level (Not displayed to the public, yet). This is the total amount of page reads the artist has gained over their lifetime, and includes all reads from all of their comics.
B) Comic Level (Not displayed to the public, yet). This is the total amount of page reads the comic has gained from all releases in all languages.
C) Comic Language Level (Not displayed to the public). This is the total amount of page reads the comic has gained in a specific language from all releases in that language. We use this number to sort popularity (right now, will be changed in the future) in /browse/.
D) Release Level (Displayed to the public). This is the total amount of page reads this specific release has gotten over it's lifetime.
Right now, there are 3 different sorting options on /browse/.2) What determines where someones comic lies in the browse section? is it the number of people subscribed to it? is it the number of views? Is it influenced by time like on Reddit?
The default sort is "Featured", which is a combination of us manually setting a featured date for a comic in language. Featured sort first sorts comics that have been featured from newest feature date, to oldest, and then uses the highest comic/language page views count for the rest.
The popularity sort order uses the total amount of pageviews the comic has gotten in that language (currently lifetime, looking to significantly update how popularity works in the future).
The last option is most recent. This sorts comics by the most recent published date of releases, so this will always sort comics by when the most recent release was published.
That's actually a really great question. I'm flagging @AhkwardKat, @Eric, @GalacticPotato, @starknight, @joshuaal, @Cavechan, @Kagekabuki, @oystersalsa, @rolling-vegetable, @bilvyy, and anyone else who has been part of sharing thoughts and feedback so far with this request:3) Elsewhere on the forums you guys have said that you're planning on implementing "advanced analytic tools" what will these look like? Depending on how detailed they are this could be another point in favor of using GlobalComix over other hosts as a creator. (Tapas & Webtoons both have very primitive analytics. I recently tried using itch.io and it was like I had a magical crystal ball comparatively, but itch.io isn't a platform that's comic-specific.)
We'd love it if you guys could share with us all the needs you have for analytics and data so we can build something amazing here. The good news is that we've been capturing all the data necessary to give great data analytics already since our first Beta Launch. We just haven't had (until now) enough data, and creators, to actually test with so we can create the right views with the right level of granularity.
So tell us, what insights do you want from your dashboard, what metrics do you want to see, and so on and so-forth :)
What I need is:We'd love it if you guys could share with us all the needs you have for analytics and data so we can build something amazing here.
So tell us, what insights do you want from your dashboard, what metrics do you want to see, and so on and so-forth :)
a) site-wide daily visitor count recorded per hour. Basically I would like to see what is the best time to be on the website to engage with the majority of the audience. Much like how Valve's Steam did it with theirs.
b) Daily unique reader count per comic. If a reader read 3 release and a few page on 4th release on the same day, this still count as 1.
c) Cumulative unique reader count per comic. If a reader read sporadically on any days, any month, any years, this count as 1. This primarily to see growth of how many reader my comic has reach to individuals.
d) Ranking of release based on like button (I think there's no like button yet?). This is to see which release/chapter does better than the other releases so that I know what I can do to imitate similar success. This is largely for self improvement.
e) My own popularity ranking in the system recorded daily, so that I know where I am in overall and in the genre, basically 2 separate chart showing my ups and down.
f) Paid pages daily earning
g) Paid pages cumulative earning
Daily data should be collapsible to weekly and monthly.
Ok, I spent some time thinking about this, @Nimloth.
The main things I have noticed in terms of needs are this:
1. An active subscriber count per comic. This is basic stuff and will help a lot in my own analysis reports since I keep excel documents of all my websites to keep track of which benefit me more than others.
2. I agree with @rolling-vegetable in that a viewer count would be helpful as well. It helps with the views/subs gained ratio and can help readers know if people are even viewing their comics.
3. I think being able to sort the earnings per release, per month, per year and an accumulative option would be great! It's awesome for tracking earnings and growth to see what works for creators and if they do something right, naturally you would think readership and income would increase.
4. I would LOVE a scheduling option. My work hours has me working from 0530am to 4pm my time zones. I get no lunch breaks (sadly they are not required by law where I live) and so I am forced to post between 4pm and 530am (central US time), which is outside of the usual optimal times. A schedule option would GREATLY help working people like me who have to have a day job in order to support making a comic because apparently I'm not good enough for Tapas or Webtoons or Patreon. XD Which is ok, I'm still learning and improving. lol
Basically the more information we can get about how, why and who our readers are is helpful! I already like to see the names of those who follow me since other sites lack that feature. However I do have some concerns.
1. We were only able to select one genre, many comics fall into MULTIPLE genres. This can be helpful in finding more comics, but it also tends to over-saturate. I think this is an option that should be discussed too.
2. I do NOT like the idea of ranking based on likes. This is EASY to become skewed with bots. We have seen this problem on webtoons and tapastic and I DO NOT want that problem here. Likes are based on active readers and is one way to shatter the dreams of new readers by seeing themselves not get likes as they begin posting. Having ranks for everything is NOT necessary in my opinion. I would still like to see likes, but I do not think that there should be rankings based on them. Someone who has more updates will more than likely have more than someone who might have BETTER art but less updates. This would skew any sort of determination on popularity by updates/release counts.
I probably will think of more things later. My brain is exhausted after work, sorry. XD
@AhkwardKat we have this discussion ongoing extensively in this thread! please Visit and share your thought!1. We were only able to select one genre, many comics fall into MULTIPLE genres. This can be helpful in finding more comics, but it also tends to over-saturate. I think this is an option that should be discussed too.
What if the ranking information of creator is only available to the creator themselves, not in the public eye? Example, I can only see my ranking number on my dashboard but not other creator, just to give a bit of information how well I'm doing when I release a new chapter or starting a new comic. I agree that if such information available to readers it will only gives the higher ranker more publicity and the readership will skewed towards one that is popular early.2. I do NOT like the idea of ranking based on likes. This is EASY to become skewed with bots. We have seen this problem on webtoons and tapastic and I DO NOT want that problem here. Likes are based on active readers and is one way to shatter the dreams of new readers by seeing themselves not get likes as they begin posting. Having ranks for everything is NOT necessary in my opinion. I would still like to see likes, but I do not think that there should be rankings based on them. Someone who has more updates will more than likely have more than someone who might have BETTER art but less updates. This would skew any sort of determination on popularity by updates/release counts.
I think the information is useful to determine the pattern if a new comic or a new user is gaining good traction or not, so it will give a good idea to creator whether to move forward further with the series or to end the series. As an engineer myself, a single number is not important but number pattern is very valuable, I don't think anyone should be discouraged to have a very low rank in the early days of starting because it's natural, so growth pattern is a better focus.
@rolling-vegetable
I think if we made like-counts available only to their creators, it would be ok. I am so scared that a lot of the ranking based systems, while needed, will spiral out of control like it did on Webtoons. It got to the point of sabotage and petty people doing their best to undermine other creators as it breeds jealousy and other bad emotions. Creator only would be one way we can definitely fix it.
As I mentioned before, I very enthusiastically track all of my numbers to see what works and what doesn't on each of my sites. So far I have seen so much favoritism set to the already popular ones and hardly any attention given to promoting and encouraging newer users/creators. To avoid other mistakes made by others, this needs to be considered as well. Even if I were to become a featured creator on any website I post to, and I am a featured creator on POPComics, I still do my best to help newer users and promote them, encourage them. That is something we do not see.
So I would love to find a way that either popular users are helping newer users, being active role models and good ones at that behavior wise. I want to see the staff actively engaging in newer and younger and less experienced users too. Lots of sites focus only on their current set of artists, while I good site will continuously look for new talents, and VARIED talents.
Another problem is the obvious favoritism towards genres. Each site has its "niche" and I get that, but when the FEATURED comics seem to be the same genres over and over and over, it gets boring, especially (on a personal level) when it is a genre I find boring. I want to see variety in the selected comics for promotional reasons. I want to see a variety of styles as possible with the selection of readers who post there. Too many times you end up seeing the same styles, same plots, same genres and to me, this ruins a website.
And yeah, a low rank is expected at first, that's just normal. The problem comes when the same people are featured over and over again and newer creators are cut out of algorithms because of rank. I think things need to be mixed up a bit to stay fresh and finding new talent constantly. You brought up a lot of good points though that new creators should keep in mind.