Playing a video registers a video hit. Viewing a size of the preview image larger than a thumbnail registers a photo hit.
So let's say I land on a gallery with just videos in the default viewing style. That's one photo hit (the larger preview image on the right). If I click to two more thumbnails successively, that's two more photo hits (each time the larger preview image is loaded on the right). Then if I click to play that last video in a lightbox, it registers a photo hit of the preview image before the video is loaded and then a video hit.
Ideally we would like to somehow not count that last photo hit as it doesn't seem representative, but it currently functions in that manner.
Does that make sense? It would have been easier to just not count video preview image hits. But we think it can be a useful stat to determine how many hits are there as compared to video hits.
Yes, makes sense, thanks. I gather, then, that SM stats can't tell you how long one views a video.... Un- - lessss - - SM adds "time viewed" for any photo or video, similar to that offered by GA.
Unique Visitors?
Hi guys, love the progress with the stats dashboard. Are there any plans to measure unique visitors that visit our sites as a whole and maybe even at the gallery level?
This is a fairly standard Internet statistic and I feel very helpful.
new stats format
This is really cool, much more user friendly and a great display of information. I would love to see this take effect for your users. After playing with the beta I went back to my own old fashioned stats page, wow, what a let down. Thumbs up guys, your site gets better all the time. Thanks
Thanks-love it!!! Just wanted to say I love the STATS page. It's so much better, faster and easier to read. Great job all, and thank you so much.
Canon EOS 30D & 50D Arizona, USA http://justineolson.smugmug.com/ ..........................................................................................
Photos Viewed by Date
First, just want to point out that the new stats breakdowns are a tremendous improvement over the earlier format-- much more informative, flexible, useful and greatly appreciated.
Second--and this issue might have already been raised in earlier posts--it's important to me to be able to know what photos have been viewed on any given day, regardless of what gallery they might be in. For example, I'd like to be able to click on a date, either in the list or on the graph, and see a list of links to or thumbnails of the photos that were viewed on that day.
If this feature already exists in the new stats, I can't find it and would appreciate instructions for accessing this info.
First, just want to point out that the new stats breakdowns are a tremendous improvement over the earlier format-- much more informative, flexible, useful and greatly appreciated.
Second--and this issue might have already been raised in earlier posts--it's important to me to be able to know what photos have been viewed on any given day, regardless of what gallery they might be in. For example, I'd like to be able to click on a date, either in the list or on the graph, and see a list of links to or thumbnails of the photos that were viewed on that day.
If this feature already exists in the new stats, I can't find it and would appreciate instructions for accessing this info.
Thanks.
I would also like to be able to see the specifics on any one particular date. Also, there needs to be a way to disclose the url of my own computer so that it doesn't get counted as views in the stats.
Consolidation, Categories, and a few radio buttons?
I was so excited when the new stats arrived! Although it may not be the perfect BETA, it gave me all the information I needed, in a fairly nice visual medium, to figure out whether I was getting enough traffic to fill out the tax forms.
Now with all the forms filled out, and my pricelist all set up. I had time to look at the new stats with a more creative eye. Well, actually, I sat back and CLOSED my eyes, and used the 3rd one. Haha! So, here’s the suggestions I’ve tried to come up with:
I love the “Total Views” tab… I don’t mind the date selection interface at all. It fits well with my idea. Maybe add a radio button to select “All Dates”... And a “Stats Home” button?
Perhaps you could implement our categories into the stats? Maybe in a collapsible tree list, like SmugMug’s navigation, but with category hit totals next to them. That way we would have one more filter between overall website hits, and gallery hits, to help zero in on certain categories, or see a broader view of our stats.
I also think making the graphs with clickable points that automatically set the date range to the day you clicked, would be more intuitive.
But there are some other things that seem to make the stats page feel a little disjointed. Maybe a more consolidated approach would be easier to navigate? I think the “Total Views” tab would be the only one needed… Instead of tabs, I think the normal SmugMug navigation links would be great, while matching the continuity of the SmugMug website.
Perhaps you could integrate the Gallery Trends, Gallery Details, Photo Trends, and Popular Tabs info into the Total Views tab?
Keep the top area of the window reserved for either a Total hits, Gallery hits, or a Photo hits graph. With clickable points for single day stats.
The bottom area, beneath the graph, could be designated for info types/views that could be selectable from a couple radio buttons, say:
Gallery view,
Would look like “Popularity” tab with collapsible category, and gallery tree list. or
Details view,
Would look like the normal info, (Dates and # of hits) and/or the “Gallery Details” tab.
I would also love to see as many clickable links on this page as possible. For instance:
From “Stats Home” page
If you click on a gallery link below the “Total Views” graph… You’ll navigate to the Trends graph page, with the sortable Info (Galleries or Details from the radio button) for that individual gallery within the date range specified.
If you click a point on the graph… (Or any graph) You’ll get a sortable one-day stats list of all the galleries, and their hits for the day you clicked on. Just like the “Popular” Tab. (You would also be able to click that “All Dates” radio button here to bring the graph back)
From the one-day stats list, I’m assuming there would be no reason for a graph. But you would still be able to click a gallery link, and be taken to the individual photo hits for that day, which would look something like the “Gallery Details” tab (Also… It may be easier to look at these details if they were arranged into 2 columns?)
It would also be nice to be able to click that “All Dates” radio button, or select a date range, to make either a “Gallery Trends” or “Photo Trends” graph reappear.
Or, from this gallery stats page, you could choose to click one of the photos from below the graph, and be taken to something like the “Photo Trends” tab for that photo.
And finally, perhaps there could be a “Stats Home” button to start it all over?
Well I hope those suggestions were able to spark some new ideas for you guys! J I do realize that I was a bit long-winded, and perhaps a little confusing. So here’s a short summary from the top of the page to the bottom:
“All Dates” Radio Button next to the date range selection. (Still Always Available)
All graphs with clickable graph points, to view single day stats.
Radio button above the info section, to select type of info displayed:
Gallery View- Shows sortable list of galleries, (clickable links), and their hits.
Details View- Shows sortable list of dates, and their hits.
4 levels of stats to view-
(click “Stats Home”)
TOTAL- To view a graph, and radio button selectable info, for all galleries.
Looks like – “Total Views” Graph, with radio buttons for “Popular”, or normal info.
Graph Links goto – One day popularity list (No graph) for all galleries.
Info Links goto – Single gallery stats page with graph, and selectable info sections.
CATEGORY – Category hit totals available in collapsible gallery list tree within the info section. Or perhaps some sort of bar graph?
GALLERY – To view a graph, and radio button selectable info, for a single gallery.
Looks like – “Gallery Trends” Graph & sortable “Gallery Details”, or "Popular" info.
Graph Links goto – One day info in “Gallery Details” tab (No graph)
Info Links goto – Pic link takes you to “Photo Trends” Graph, and Info
PHOTO- To view a graph, and info, for a single photo.
Looks like – “Photo Trends” Graph, and Info
Graph Links – N/A.
Info Links – N/A.
Category info and hits would be available in the info section within the collapsible tree gallery list.
Thanks again for all your time, and willingness to hear our ideas!
Trav
Hmmm, I wonder if there’ll ever be a demand for comparing your galleries with eachother, or you friends or family…?
Hi guys, love the progress with the stats dashboard. Are there any plans to measure unique visitors that visit our sites as a whole and maybe even at the gallery level?
This is a fairly standard Internet statistic and I feel very helpful.
Thank you,
digitalQ
Add Google Analytics and Statcounter, both do things really well. Both free. Both take only a couple minutes to add.
Add Google Analytics and Statcounter, both do things really well. Both free. Both take only a couple minutes to add.
I use Google Analytics for work and personal, it can even be sent to automatically e-mail you a report at recurring intervals. Great tool for me as it pushes the data to me, I don't have to go look for it.
Minor suggestion for new Stats
In the Gallery Details (and I suppose this can apply elsewhere), I think it would be a good practice to use a complete blank instead of a zero.
This way, 'zeros' stand out more because there's nothing at all there, rather than the digit being there which--with my eyes and probably most of us in the 50-ish age range--is difficult to see clearly and differentiate from another digit.
It's just a User-Interface standard that is very effective, in my opinion, at differentiating nothings from somethings.
--Jim
When displaying the stats for the range from February 4 to February 5 in the Total View Tab I noticed that the total photos (below the graph) are shown for February 3 and February 4 instead of February 4 and February 5.
When changing the date range to February 5 (start and end date for this single date) the photos shown for this date below the graph in the Total View tab seem to be correct though.
Is it possible to also include the filenames below or aside of the photos in the Popularity tab? I also would like that photos with zero count are not shown in this Popularity tab to avoid a long listing.
It would be nice if the selection in the "select totals for viewing" in the Total View tab can be saved. I currently have no videos and just check the "total photos" box. This setting as such does not bother me as the graph does not change but what I want is that it would be nice if the settings can be saved or taken over from the previous session.
When setting the date range I would like to have the options the way the stats with Google adsense and Amazon associates work, with some predefined ranges like: today, yesterday, this week, this month, past month,... beside the possibility to enter a variable date range.
Stats are still next to useless for me... Read why
I have a few galleries with graphic elements for my smugmug customisation. Every visitor for every page hits these graphics several times, polluting my total number of views and popular galleries...
PLEASE there MUST be a way to exclude galleries from the stats. Until then, every single smugmug user that has customisation loading graphics from a gallery will be getting inaccurate stats.
Any chance of seeing this? I have commented 2 or 3 times on this in this thread, and while most other suggestions have at least had a comment from the developer, there has been ominous silence on this.
Is it impossible with the current design to exclude galleries?
I love the new stats...they are easy to read...but as commented before, I don't really like the way the beta is displaying galleries...I have my site sorted by galleries also and don't particularly like having to click on each one to look at the data...I don't know if there would be a view or tab where you could look at the hits on all the galleries on a chart?? Then maybe being able to click on the dot and open the specifics for the images within the gallery??
If that is there and I missed it, sorry...you know us old farts and change, when something new comes along it can take a while to find all the options
Keep up the great work, you are certainly working in the right direction...
Stats do not add up.
I just checked the new stats for several of my galleries. None of them seem to add up, either being too high or too low. If I go to the "Popular" tab, select a gallery, and add up the hits for each photo, they do not add up to the Totals shown on the tab.
Love the new stats but I do have one request. Many of my galleries have a few hundred photos and it always takes a long time for all the thumbs to load. How about adding an option to load all thumbs or a certain number at a time. I'd rather have the option of clicking through 10 pages of thumbs rather then being forced to wait for them all to load at once.
New stats seem way too high
I love the new stats, but I simply can't believe the numbers I've been seeing this month. I'll use today (2/23) as an example. Currently, at 9:32 PM PST, the stats show 5633 total hits for all of my galleries. I'd love to believe that number, but if I drill down, two photos in one gallery show well over 4,000 of those hits, and those two photos are near the bottom of today's Daily popular list, as in 521 of 563. So those two got over 4,000 views and maybe two or three thumbs up? Hmmmm. Those same two photos also got zero comments today. Again, very strange.
Meanwhile Google Analytics shows 19 visits and 335 pageviews for the day. That's different by an order of magnitude! Right-click is turned off, as is external linking. I can't for the life of me see a way that these numbers are correct. Is anyone else seeing spikes like this? You can see from the screenshot below that there was a similar spike on the 10th of this month, with over 6,000 views, while the rest of the month looks to be averaging around 1,000 views per day.
I don't have time to read all of the posts on this topic (so I hope I am not being repetitive), but I have been using SmugMug and these new stats for a couple months now and have a bit of feedback.
Stats are very important to me. I like to check the stats a couple times a day after I do a major posting or two to see what sort of eyes are being attracted. What I want to see at a glance is what specific pictures are being viewed today. Right now, I can see that there is activity, but there is simply no way to know what is interesting without looking through each gallery one-by-one. Even then, it is impossible to see which images were viewed today.
I have been transitioning from using flickr because of the gallery management and front page customization features of SmugMug, but I really miss their stats. When you click on stats on flickr, you get a full list of every image viewed today and yesterday and where they were linked from. I can see at a glance if specific activities I am doing are having their intended effect and bringing the views I am trying to achieve. I can also see if the views are coming after reading a blog post or Facebook post or from somewhere else entirely.
I'm also startled by how much larger the counts reported in the beta stats are than the counts I'm seeing from Statcounter or Google Analytics. We're talking orders of magnitude here. For example, the number of photo views for Saturday 3/6 is reported as 1387, but Statcounter only reported 134 page views, with 17 visitors. I suppose part of the discrepancy would be that the photos being displayed in the slideshow in the header at the top of my page are contributing to the Smugmug count but not the Statcounter count, but from looking at the lengths of the visitors it doesn't seem likely that would account for all of it. Most visits appear quite short and it doesn't seem likely that the slideshow would cycle through so many photos.
In light of this, some detail on the context in which photos were viewed would be useful. Maybe a breakdown by whether 1) a photo was viewed directly on its page, 2) in a slideshow here or elsewhere, or 3) embedded in another page. If such a breakdown isn't possible, I would at least like to be able to exclude views of photos that occurred in slideshows.
For photos that were viewed while embedded elsewhere, it would be great to have some info about the page in which they were embedded, the like URL of the page, but I don't know if that is available. Basically it would be nice if I could figure out if my photos are being embedded somewhere else. I don't have any problem with them being embedded, but I would like to know where. I have been playing with Google Webmaster tools but it doesn't really seem to do very much for this.
Also for popularity, it would be nice to see a list of the top 25 or 50 photos sitewide that attracted the most views during the period specified. Right now the popularity lists galleries in descending order of popularity, it would be nice to also have a list of top 25, 50, or 100 photos.
While I'm on the subject of the popularity tab, it was only by accident that I found out I could see counts of views using the scrollbar at the bottom of the list. Why not put the counts to the left of the name of the gallery so they are always displayed, and get rid of the scrolling.
I love the new stats, but I simply can't believe the numbers I've been seeing this month. I'll use today (2/23) as an example. Currently, at 9:32 PM PST, the stats show 5633 total hits for all of my galleries. I'd love to believe that number, but if I drill down, two photos in one gallery show well over 4,000 of those hits, and those two photos are near the bottom of today's Daily popular list, as in 521 of 563. So those two got over 4,000 views and maybe two or three thumbs up? Hmmmm. Those same two photos also got zero comments today. Again, very strange.
Meanwhile Google Analytics shows 19 visits and 335 pageviews for the day. That's different by an order of magnitude! Right-click is turned off, as is external linking. I can't for the life of me see a way that these numbers are correct. Is anyone else seeing spikes like this? You can see from the screenshot below that there was a similar spike on the 10th of this month, with over 6,000 views, while the rest of the month looks to be averaging around 1,000 views per day.
I dig what canghuixu and others are pointing out/asking for here. If the stats in the beta on smug are indeed correct, I sure would like to know how. I won't go into more detail as I think it's all been stated pretty well.
My biggest request for stats break down to just two things:
- the popularity report would be more useful if it showed most popular PHOTOS, instead of galleries
- it would be very helpful to know where the traffic is coming from (other smugmuggers, search engines, direct, etc.)
New Stats is new and therefor probably better. My main interest is to see which of the gallaries that have been viewed recently. So to me they are rather equal ... I get that info from either.
But when I say they are equal it actually means they both have the same major problem ... they both lack proper infornation of where the Gallary is located.
I have many Galaries with same name ... like OVERVIEW or WINTER WALK. If the new stats could also discplay the CATEGORY and SUBCATEGORY it would be a major improvement for me ... this is a small but (to me) extremly important enhancement request.
Regards, Harald
==================
My focus is on digitizing memories
Maybe I'm missing something. When I first click into the new beta stats, I see a page that states "Total views". Kt gives me a very nic list by date of the total photos, Videos & views for a given day.
But nowhere can I see which photos or which videos. Why not?
I've just noticed that my stats are going backwards, sometimes by a few hundred views. Is there a reason for this, or is it just a bug with the beta? TIA.
I've just noticed that my stats are going backwards, sometimes by a few hundred views. Is there a reason for this, or is it just a bug with the beta? TIA.
Specifically and precisely, which of your stats? The more details you can tell us, the better we can help - thanks.
Specifically and precisely, which of your stats? The more details you can tell us, the better we can help - thanks.
Of course - sorry about that. I'm referring to the numbers on the 'Popularity' tab. I was monitoring it fairly regularly yesterday (every 30 minutes or so), and I noticed that the Total Views for the gallery I was interested in actually decreased a few times. Is that enough info?
They now seem to have stopped working altogether. Total Views is saying that I've had 0 views so far today, while StatCounter says I've had 29 visitors and 119 page loads.
Comments
Yes, makes sense, thanks. I gather, then, that SM stats can't tell you how long one views a video.... Un- - lessss - - SM adds "time viewed" for any photo or video, similar to that offered by GA.
Thanks again...
Hi guys, love the progress with the stats dashboard. Are there any plans to measure unique visitors that visit our sites as a whole and maybe even at the gallery level?
This is a fairly standard Internet statistic and I feel very helpful.
Thank you,
digitalQ
This is really cool, much more user friendly and a great display of information. I would love to see this take effect for your users. After playing with the beta I went back to my own old fashioned stats page, wow, what a let down. Thumbs up guys, your site gets better all the time. Thanks
Arizona, USA
http://justineolson.smugmug.com/
..........................................................................................
First, just want to point out that the new stats breakdowns are a tremendous improvement over the earlier format-- much more informative, flexible, useful and greatly appreciated.
Second--and this issue might have already been raised in earlier posts--it's important to me to be able to know what photos have been viewed on any given day, regardless of what gallery they might be in. For example, I'd like to be able to click on a date, either in the list or on the graph, and see a list of links to or thumbnails of the photos that were viewed on that day.
If this feature already exists in the new stats, I can't find it and would appreciate instructions for accessing this info.
Thanks.
I would also like to be able to see the specifics on any one particular date. Also, there needs to be a way to disclose the url of my own computer so that it doesn't get counted as views in the stats.
When you are logged in, your own views won't count.
Sweet that was my next question. Does the same apply to Assistant logins?
Pictures | Website | Blog | Twitter | Contact
I was so excited when the new stats arrived! Although it may not be the perfect BETA, it gave me all the information I needed, in a fairly nice visual medium, to figure out whether I was getting enough traffic to fill out the tax forms.
Now with all the forms filled out, and my pricelist all set up. I had time to look at the new stats with a more creative eye. Well, actually, I sat back and CLOSED my eyes, and used the 3rd one. Haha! So, here’s the suggestions I’ve tried to come up with:
I love the “Total Views” tab… I don’t mind the date selection interface at all. It fits well with my idea. Maybe add a radio button to select “All Dates”... And a “Stats Home” button?
Perhaps you could implement our categories into the stats? Maybe in a collapsible tree list, like SmugMug’s navigation, but with category hit totals next to them. That way we would have one more filter between overall website hits, and gallery hits, to help zero in on certain categories, or see a broader view of our stats.
I also think making the graphs with clickable points that automatically set the date range to the day you clicked, would be more intuitive.
But there are some other things that seem to make the stats page feel a little disjointed. Maybe a more consolidated approach would be easier to navigate? I think the “Total Views” tab would be the only one needed… Instead of tabs, I think the normal SmugMug navigation links would be great, while matching the continuity of the SmugMug website.
Perhaps you could integrate the Gallery Trends, Gallery Details, Photo Trends, and Popular Tabs info into the Total Views tab?
Keep the top area of the window reserved for either a Total hits, Gallery hits, or a Photo hits graph. With clickable points for single day stats.
The bottom area, beneath the graph, could be designated for info types/views that could be selectable from a couple radio buttons, say:
Gallery view,
Would look like “Popularity” tab with collapsible category, and gallery tree list. or
Details view,
Would look like the normal info, (Dates and # of hits) and/or the “Gallery Details” tab.
I would also love to see as many clickable links on this page as possible. For instance:
From “Stats Home” page
If you click on a gallery link below the “Total Views” graph… You’ll navigate to the Trends graph page, with the sortable Info (Galleries or Details from the radio button) for that individual gallery within the date range specified.
If you click a point on the graph… (Or any graph) You’ll get a sortable one-day stats list of all the galleries, and their hits for the day you clicked on. Just like the “Popular” Tab. (You would also be able to click that “All Dates” radio button here to bring the graph back)
From the one-day stats list, I’m assuming there would be no reason for a graph. But you would still be able to click a gallery link, and be taken to the individual photo hits for that day, which would look something like the “Gallery Details” tab (Also… It may be easier to look at these details if they were arranged into 2 columns?)
It would also be nice to be able to click that “All Dates” radio button, or select a date range, to make either a “Gallery Trends” or “Photo Trends” graph reappear.
Or, from this gallery stats page, you could choose to click one of the photos from below the graph, and be taken to something like the “Photo Trends” tab for that photo.
And finally, perhaps there could be a “Stats Home” button to start it all over?
Well I hope those suggestions were able to spark some new ideas for you guys! J I do realize that I was a bit long-winded, and perhaps a little confusing. So here’s a short summary from the top of the page to the bottom:
“All Dates” Radio Button next to the date range selection. (Still Always Available)
All graphs with clickable graph points, to view single day stats.
Radio button above the info section, to select type of info displayed:
Gallery View- Shows sortable list of galleries, (clickable links), and their hits.
Details View- Shows sortable list of dates, and their hits.
4 levels of stats to view-
(click “Stats Home”)
TOTAL- To view a graph, and radio button selectable info, for all galleries.
Looks like – “Total Views” Graph, with radio buttons for “Popular”, or normal info.
Graph Links goto – One day popularity list (No graph) for all galleries.
Info Links goto – Single gallery stats page with graph, and selectable info sections.
CATEGORY – Category hit totals available in collapsible gallery list tree within the info section. Or perhaps some sort of bar graph?
GALLERY – To view a graph, and radio button selectable info, for a single gallery.
Looks like – “Gallery Trends” Graph & sortable “Gallery Details”, or "Popular" info.
Graph Links goto – One day info in “Gallery Details” tab (No graph)
Info Links goto – Pic link takes you to “Photo Trends” Graph, and Info
PHOTO- To view a graph, and info, for a single photo.
Looks like – “Photo Trends” Graph, and Info
Graph Links – N/A.
Info Links – N/A.
Category info and hits would be available in the info section within the collapsible tree gallery list.
Thanks again for all your time, and willingness to hear our ideas!
Trav
Hmmm, I wonder if there’ll ever be a demand for comparing your galleries with eachother, or you friends or family…?
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1092794
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1092684
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
I use Google Analytics for work and personal, it can even be sent to automatically e-mail you a report at recurring intervals. Great tool for me as it pushes the data to me, I don't have to go look for it.
Pictures | Website | Blog | Twitter | Contact
In the Gallery Details (and I suppose this can apply elsewhere), I think it would be a good practice to use a complete blank instead of a zero.
This way, 'zeros' stand out more because there's nothing at all there, rather than the digit being there which--with my eyes and probably most of us in the 50-ish age range--is difficult to see clearly and differentiate from another digit.
It's just a User-Interface standard that is very effective, in my opinion, at differentiating nothings from somethings.
--Jim
When changing the date range to February 5 (start and end date for this single date) the photos shown for this date below the graph in the Total View tab seem to be correct though.
Is it possible to also include the filenames below or aside of the photos in the Popularity tab? I also would like that photos with zero count are not shown in this Popularity tab to avoid a long listing.
It would be nice if the selection in the "select totals for viewing" in the Total View tab can be saved. I currently have no videos and just check the "total photos" box. This setting as such does not bother me as the graph does not change but what I want is that it would be nice if the settings can be saved or taken over from the previous session.
When setting the date range I would like to have the options the way the stats with Google adsense and Amazon associates work, with some predefined ranges like: today, yesterday, this week, this month, past month,... beside the possibility to enter a variable date range.
The stats really start to look very nice!
Luc
I have a few galleries with graphic elements for my smugmug customisation. Every visitor for every page hits these graphics several times, polluting my total number of views and popular galleries...
PLEASE there MUST be a way to exclude galleries from the stats. Until then, every single smugmug user that has customisation loading graphics from a gallery will be getting inaccurate stats.
Any chance of seeing this? I have commented 2 or 3 times on this in this thread, and while most other suggestions have at least had a comment from the developer, there has been ominous silence on this.
Is it impossible with the current design to exclude galleries?
Regards
Neil Gardner
http://www.nzsnaps.com (talkiet.smugmug.com)
If that is there and I missed it, sorry...you know us old farts and change, when something new comes along it can take a while to find all the options
Keep up the great work, you are certainly working in the right direction...
I just checked the new stats for several of my galleries. None of them seem to add up, either being too high or too low. If I go to the "Popular" tab, select a gallery, and add up the hits for each photo, they do not add up to the Totals shown on the tab.
I've noticed a problem as well. It appears all my video stats have zeroed out and I know they weren't zero before.
www.ackersphotography.com
Sirens of Song Image Gallery
http://images.sirensofsong.com
I love the new stats, but I simply can't believe the numbers I've been seeing this month. I'll use today (2/23) as an example. Currently, at 9:32 PM PST, the stats show 5633 total hits for all of my galleries. I'd love to believe that number, but if I drill down, two photos in one gallery show well over 4,000 of those hits, and those two photos are near the bottom of today's Daily popular list, as in 521 of 563. So those two got over 4,000 views and maybe two or three thumbs up? Hmmmm. Those same two photos also got zero comments today. Again, very strange.
Meanwhile Google Analytics shows 19 visits and 335 pageviews for the day. That's different by an order of magnitude! Right-click is turned off, as is external linking. I can't for the life of me see a way that these numbers are correct. Is anyone else seeing spikes like this? You can see from the screenshot below that there was a similar spike on the 10th of this month, with over 6,000 views, while the rest of the month looks to be averaging around 1,000 views per day.
Thanks for any suggestions,
Dennis
2DPhotography
Hey Guys,
I don't have time to read all of the posts on this topic (so I hope I am not being repetitive), but I have been using SmugMug and these new stats for a couple months now and have a bit of feedback.
Stats are very important to me. I like to check the stats a couple times a day after I do a major posting or two to see what sort of eyes are being attracted. What I want to see at a glance is what specific pictures are being viewed today. Right now, I can see that there is activity, but there is simply no way to know what is interesting without looking through each gallery one-by-one. Even then, it is impossible to see which images were viewed today.
I have been transitioning from using flickr because of the gallery management and front page customization features of SmugMug, but I really miss their stats. When you click on stats on flickr, you get a full list of every image viewed today and yesterday and where they were linked from. I can see at a glance if specific activities I am doing are having their intended effect and bringing the views I am trying to achieve. I can also see if the views are coming after reading a blog post or Facebook post or from somewhere else entirely.
Thanks for working to make the site better.
In light of this, some detail on the context in which photos were viewed would be useful. Maybe a breakdown by whether 1) a photo was viewed directly on its page, 2) in a slideshow here or elsewhere, or 3) embedded in another page. If such a breakdown isn't possible, I would at least like to be able to exclude views of photos that occurred in slideshows.
For photos that were viewed while embedded elsewhere, it would be great to have some info about the page in which they were embedded, the like URL of the page, but I don't know if that is available. Basically it would be nice if I could figure out if my photos are being embedded somewhere else. I don't have any problem with them being embedded, but I would like to know where. I have been playing with Google Webmaster tools but it doesn't really seem to do very much for this.
Also for popularity, it would be nice to see a list of the top 25 or 50 photos sitewide that attracted the most views during the period specified. Right now the popularity lists galleries in descending order of popularity, it would be nice to also have a list of top 25, 50, or 100 photos.
While I'm on the subject of the popularity tab, it was only by accident that I found out I could see counts of views using the scrollbar at the bottom of the list. Why not put the counts to the left of the name of the gallery so they are always displayed, and get rid of the scrolling.
My biggest request for stats break down to just two things:
- the popularity report would be more useful if it showed most popular PHOTOS, instead of galleries
- it would be very helpful to know where the traffic is coming from (other smugmuggers, search engines, direct, etc.)
New Stats is new and therefor probably better. My main interest is to see which of the gallaries that have been viewed recently. So to me they are rather equal ... I get that info from either.
But when I say they are equal it actually means they both have the same major problem ... they both lack proper infornation of where the Gallary is located.
I have many Galaries with same name ... like OVERVIEW or WINTER WALK. If the new stats could also discplay the CATEGORY and SUBCATEGORY it would be a major improvement for me ... this is a small but (to me) extremly important enhancement request.
Regards, Harald
My focus is on digitizing memories
But nowhere can I see which photos or which videos. Why not?
My galleries: http://ghealy.smugmug.com
My Blog: http://photosbyhealy.blogspot.com
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Of course - sorry about that. I'm referring to the numbers on the 'Popularity' tab. I was monitoring it fairly regularly yesterday (every 30 minutes or so), and I noticed that the Total Views for the gallery I was interested in actually decreased a few times. Is that enough info?