An update to increase the accuracy of subreddit traffic pages

https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/8uy4xo/an_update_to_increase_the_accuracy_of_subreddit/

created by Drunken_Economist on 30/06/2018 at 00:40 UTC*

282 upvotes, 36 top-level comments (showing 25)

Happy Friday, mods!

I’m wearing my admin hat[1] today to let you know we made a slight change in the way we’re aggregating pageviews on your subreddit and profile traffic pages (you can read more about the previous update to these aggregates here[2]).

1: https://d3hp8xnxb3lun4.cloudfront.net/media/catalog/product/cache/1f03e40b77d680e758a387a656dfd586/l/o/lock_st_james_s_fedora_khaki_1-min.png

2: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/6pxyvy/traffic_page_update_now_includes_data_from_all/

In short, most subreddits will see a slight increase in counts of unique viewers, and a less-slight increase in pageviews. In rare cases, the count of unique users/pageviewsmight decrease, but that shouldn't be too common. The metrics presented include counting across all our first-party platforms (legacy web, the redesign, the official Android and iOS apps, and mobile web).

This change only affects subreddit and profile traffic pages; there are no changes to post view counts, ad views, etc.

I’ll stick around in the comments to ~~shitpost~~ answer questions if you have any; otherwise, enjoy your weekend!

edit: looks like this change might break today's traffic stats though . . . that wasn't intentional

edit2: fixed!

edit3: See also: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/954a8p/traffic%5C_page%5C_update%5C_see%5C_your%5C_subreddits%5C_traffic/[3][4]

3: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/954a8p/traffic%5C_page%5C_update%5C_see%5C_your%5C_subreddits%5C_traffic/

4: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/954a8p/traffic_page_update_see_your_subreddits_traffic/

Comments

Comment by Baldemoto at 30/06/2018 at 00:54 UTC

28 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Hey, I wanted to know if there's a possibility in the future to add visits from major third-party apps? We're probably missing a few hundreds of thousands of good users that are not using the official app, so I wanted to know if that could be theoretically possible.

Comment by ShaneH7646 at 30/06/2018 at 00:46 UTC

56 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Are you going to be updating the traffic page for the redesign? its pretty useless as is

Comment by adeadhead at 30/06/2018 at 00:46 UTC

12 upvotes, 1 direct replies

So wait, what's acctually been changed on the counting side?

Comment by sodypop at 30/06/2018 at 00:41 UTC

21 upvotes, 2 direct replies

That's a nice hat. Where do I get one of those?

Comment by [deleted] at 30/06/2018 at 00:42 UTC*

10 upvotes, 1 direct replies

[deleted]

Comment by Lt_Riza_Hawkeye at 30/06/2018 at 00:41 UTC

8 upvotes, 1 direct replies

shitposting continues*

Comment by SixtyFours at 30/06/2018 at 00:47 UTC

3 upvotes, 1 direct replies

So how slight of an increase would be expected from this update, in terms of percentiles?

Comment by Trikshot360 at 30/06/2018 at 00:50 UTC

5 upvotes, 1 direct replies

I saw no change in my traffic pages, what should I see differently?

Also, will this only affect FUTURE or both past and future traffic logs?

Comment by EditingAndLayout at 30/06/2018 at 00:59 UTC

4 upvotes, 1 direct replies

What are your top 3 subreddits these days?

Comment by Addyct at 30/06/2018 at 01:15 UTC

5 upvotes, 1 direct replies

You should come back and mod r/cbb with us again.

Comment by PickerPilgrim at 30/06/2018 at 18:43 UTC*

6 upvotes, 0 direct replies

It would be *really useful* to see a breakdown of traffic between old Reddit and new Reddit. We need to know how are users are visiting our subs and therefore where to focus our efforts.

Changes to user/post flair for new Reddit don't necessarily work well for old Reddit and visa versa. Knowing how people see the site is a crucial bit of missing info.

Edit: I'll add that it's important to see this sooner rather than later. The transition period between old and new is when it will actually make a difference. If the traffic page gets updated only after the rollout is more or less complete we will have been operating blind for the duration.

Comment by awkwardtheturtle at 30/06/2018 at 00:42 UTC

20 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Nice nice, this will increase my ability to take credit for subreddit growth that happened outside my control, thanks

Comment by Sporkicide at 30/06/2018 at 00:43 UTC

11 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Those jagged edges are worthy of your Geocities page.

Comment by V2Blast at 30/06/2018 at 00:49 UTC

3 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Yay accuracy.

Comment by Coolboypai at 30/06/2018 at 01:01 UTC

5 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Just wanted to say thanks for not forgetting about traffic stats! It's such a valuable part of any subreddit that is limited by its lack of features and lack of details. I'm glad to see that it's still being worked on and things added to it, especially since sites like redditmetrics no longer works properly.

Comment by wickedplayer494 at 30/06/2018 at 01:23 UTC

8 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Can we please get back the ability to make subreddit traffic pages public? The only reason we had it taken away was because it didn't count app views[1], and that's been fixed way back[2].

1: https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/6bj0iy/reddit_change_post_view_counts_users_here_now_and/

2: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/6pxyvy/traffic_page_update_now_includes_data_from_all/

Comment by [deleted] at 30/06/2018 at 11:03 UTC*

3 upvotes, 0 direct replies

/u/Drunken_Economist

what I would actually like the traffic page to show:

for daily/monthly

number of post submissions [total and divided into links and self]

number of comments

number of votes

breakdown of:

mobile vs desktop users

classic desktop vs redesign users

and a longer "back archive"

Comment by lightmystic at 04/07/2018 at 04:40 UTC

3 upvotes, 1 direct replies

So I'm both happy and concerned to see a jump last month to 192k visitors from 110k the month before.

I'm happy cause, needless to say, I'd love for that to be accurate - but I am concerned the "*might break today's traffic stats though*" part might be what gave the lovely increase.

While we're only two days into July and FAR from a reasonable estimation on monthly statistics, the current average traffic would make 204k a possibility this month...meaning its accurate? Whatever you guys did to make stats more accurate, I love it, and the big pretty numbers make me happy if its definitely not the "break" that day.

Comment by xfile345 at 30/06/2018 at 01:12 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

I'm sure I missed an update somewhere, but is there any reason why A) Traffic pages are no longer available to the public (there used to be an option in subreddit preferences) and B) Traffic pages have a bit of a delay before being displayed. The delay isn't quite as long as, say, attempting to view u/AutoModerator's profile page (lol), but that extra few seconds is noticeable and I'm only curious.

Also, is A) because of B), perhaps?

HI!

Comment by greebytime at 30/06/2018 at 02:40 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Since we're talking about traffic, unless I've lost my marbles we used to be able to click on each date in the traffic section and see what was posted that day. For instance, if a sub had particularly high traffic on one date, I could just click through and see all the posts from that date. It was really helpful to try and ascertain what posts were particularly helpful and engaging.