flickr view counts?

back alley

back alley

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what's up with the view counts on flickr?
i went from a few stragglers a day to up to over 2000 per day!

at first i thought it was the 2 pics that got included in the 'explore' section that maybe was attracting a few extra peaks at my stuff but that was 2 weeks ago now.

did they change something?
 
Stats have been all over the place for the past few weeks. Mine can go from a few hundred per day to just a few and vice versa. Stats can also change for past days.

With the new design, nobody is clicking on the images to view them as a single photo anymore. So flickr is trying new things on how to count unique image views. They will eventually give up and just remove the stats as they don't have a clue what they're doing.
 
Although traffic to my stream has been healthy for a long time (500-1000 hits per day,1.2 million in total) I also suddeny get crazy peaks to over 6000 per day lately. Dunno what to make of it, especially if the increased hit rate seems random, not focused on the few good pictures between 1000's of banal ones ;)
 
Yeah I seem to have gotten around 1400 views a day or so ago for some reason. Usually average between 200-300/day by looking at stats. It's a pity that even less people click through to photos (but if you think about it, this is probably worse for Flickr's ad revenue - so perhaps there's a bit of backfire there) as some of the best stuff on Flickr is in the comments (atleast the people I follow and contribute to).
 
Yes, it figures that they would try a new way of counting views since the new layout makes individual image 'clicks' less likely. Clearly this new system doesn't work well, is not properly indicative of an image's popularity and is a poor statistical fudge.

A cynical part of me also suspects that Flickr have deliberately conspired to give people the illusion of increased views to in an attempt to retain members despite the fact that their traffic has supposedly dropped a great deal since the revamp.




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Bobfrance said:
Yes, it figures that they would try a new way of counting views since the new layout makes individual image 'clicks' less likely. Clearly this new system doesn't work well, is not properly indicative of an image's popularity and is a poor statistical fudge.

A cynical part of me also suspects that Flickr have deliberately conspired to give people the illusion of increased views to in an attempt to retain members despite the fact that their traffic has supposedly dropped a great deal since the revamp.

.
Click to expand...

... looks like organic growth?

9509154080_5ce231c53c_o.jpg
 
If you drill down a bit, you may find (as I have) that it is merely enough for your image to appear in the stream of results from a search. Even if your image appears at a point in the stream to which the searcher has not scrolled & therefore seen (let alone clicked through to), that seems to count as a "view"
 
pdh said:
If you drill down a bit, you may find (as I have) that it is merely enough for your image to appear in the stream of results from a search. Even if your image appears at a point in the stream to which the searcher has not scrolled & therefore seen (let alone clicked through to), that seems to count as a "view"
Click to expand...

Interesting.
Flickr views were always meaningless really but at least did have some use as rough feedback to how well you images were received by the people you associated with on the site. Personally I think this new way of counting renders them utterly useless.
 
pdh said:
If you drill down a bit, you may find (as I have) that it is merely enough for your image to appear in the stream of results from a search. Even if your image appears at a point in the stream to which the searcher has not scrolled & therefore seen (let alone clicked through to), that seems to count as a "view"
Click to expand...

Yes.

Additionally, stats (that you can see if you have a previous paid account) don't match the view count that you can see under your images.

They are transforming to an Instagram and paying attention to such little quirks from old flickr is not worth worrying about, IMHO.
 
Despite all this, it is gratifying to see my pictures being sought and found and linked to. Sometimes a site (e.g. a Russian tank forum) discovers a set they find interesting and hit rate goes throuh the roof. And of course, boobs.
 
My theory? Flickr has gone from being primarily subscriber-supported to ad-supported. In order to lure advertisers, the have changed the way that they count unique visitors, especially where sets are considered. In the past, a visit to a set was counted as one visit, and views of individual photos within the sets were ignored. Now, every page (photo) viewed in the set is counted as a unique visit.
 
Maybe not fully OT, but I have a picture of a Great White Shark tooth that I found. Every year the Discovery Channel in the US shows a bunch of TV shows on sharks and all of a sudden that picture jumps with views.
 
It is true flickr has changed what counts as a view. Previously somebody had to actually click on the photo to view it. Now if somebody scrolls over it in a search or your photostream (and maybe even just in a group pool) it counts as a view. Keepin mind that with the new justified view some photos reload a couple times as the page "justifies" itself - and it's easy to see why "views" have gone through the roof. The new view stats are less than worthless.
 
From Eric Kim's FB page - Don't worry about the number of followers, favorites, views, or likes you have on social media. "Only the poor man counts his flock" - Seneca
 
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