Understanding Smugmug Gallery Statistics

updeinva · June 26, 2011

I know I read something regarding this in a previous post, but I cannot find it any longer. I'm wondering what exactly the Statistics panel numbers mean?

1. If people view a gallery by clicking on "Slide Show", does each photo that is viewed show up in Statistics, or do any get counted when they use the Slide Show?

2. Do any of the views that I make on my own computer show up as a view in Statistics (in Blogspot you can set it so your own views don't show up in the count).

3. For many of my galleries, I get substantially more views on the first 3-4 images than the remaining ones. Does that simply indicate that people only look at the first 3-4 images, then stop looking; or does it indicate something else? (I was curious when people look at a gallery via the Slide Show if only the first image in the gallery gets counted.)

4. Are there any circumstances where people might access a gallery and view images when those views are not counted within Statistics?

Thanks.

schmoo · June 26, 2011

Hi updeinva, we have a lot of info about Stats and how they work not only in our help pages but in a recent blog post we did:

http://www.smugmug.com/help/acctreport
http://news.smugmug.com/2011/06/15/smug-tip-of-the-week-viewing-your-stats/

In short:

1) We don't count each round of a slideshow as a hit. So if your client opens a slideshow once and leaves it running, that will count only as one hit.

2) We don't track your hits as you browse your site when logged in because we know how much work you do going around and checking things in your own galleries.

3+4) Each hit in your site stats is a time the image was loaded on a screen, so it's likely that your clients may not be going through the entire gallery every single time. If your'e concerned about this, maybe you can try using a different gallery viewing style, like Thumbnails, which creates a different sort of viewing experience.

We hope this helps, but if you have any lingering questions please don't hesitate to let us know.

Cheers,
Steph

kathiemt · July 14, 2011

schmoo wrote: »

2) We don't track your hits as you browse your site when logged in because we know how much work you do going around and checking things in your own galleries.

Cheers,
Steph

In looking at this, I have a high number of hits on my Smugmug site files but these are unlisted. Is this because of my bio image and watermarks being viewed perhaps? I was going to assume it was because my own viewings are being counted but in finding this thread it appears not to be, so I'm trying to work out why unlisted gallery images are getting high visit counts, i.e. over 300. I've not yet had the site a week.

SamirD · July 15, 2011

If your images have been posted to someplace like a forum, each time that thread is loaded it counts as a view. I've seen 800 views in a day because of a discussion thread that has a lot of traffic.

kathiemt · July 15, 2011

No, the images haven't been posted at a forum from here. I use Flickr for that. But I have posted links at forums.

SamirD · July 15, 2011

kathiemt wrote: »

No, the images haven't been posted at a forum from here. I use Flickr for that. But I have posted links at forums.

So the images weren't embedded, only a link to the gallery posted?

Then you should see a lot of referral traffic to either the first image in the gallery or the one specified in the link.

kathiemt · July 15, 2011

SamirD wrote: »

So the images weren't embedded, only a link to the gallery posted? Then you should see a lot of referral traffic to either the first image in the gallery or the one specified in the link.

Yes, I've been scratching my head too. I only post links for the website (not individual images or galleries) at Twitter, Facebook and other forums. I use Flickr or Facebook images for embedding at forums.

So far the referrals stats only show my own website leading to the smugmug site. I've set up statcounter now as I've got it working so that will give me a better idea.

SamirD · July 15, 2011

kathiemt wrote: »

Yes, I've been scratching my head too. I only post links for the website (not individual images or galleries) at Twitter, Facebook and other forums. I use Flickr or Facebook images for embedding at forums.

So far the referrals stats only show my own website leading to the smugmug site. I've set up statcounter now as I've got it working so that will give me a better idea.

The referral will only show the page prior to viewing the image. If you're posting your homepage link and people are navigating to the images, the referral is your site since that was the last page visited before viewing the image.

TalkieT · July 16, 2011

I've pointed out several times that any images you host for customisation of your site (like backgrounds, box elements etc) still get included in the stats and end up being quite misleading. So far SMugmug hasn't bothered to address even my questions, let alone say whether they plan to have any way to address it...

One way to address it would be to be able to exclude some galleries from stats.

For anyone with a customised site, and wanting site (rather than gallery) stats, the Smugmug stats are useless.

Cheers - N

Andy · July 17, 2011

TalkieT wrote: »

I've pointed out several times that any images you host for customisation of your site (like backgrounds, box elements etc) still get included in the stats and end up being quite misleading. So far SMugmug hasn't bothered to address even my questions, let alone say whether they plan to have any way to address it...

One way to address it would be to be able to exclude some galleries from stats.

For anyone with a customised site, and wanting site (rather than gallery) stats, the Smugmug stats are useless.

Cheers - N

If I've missed a post of yours, please point me to it, Neil.

TalkieT · July 17, 2011

Andy wrote: »

If I've missed a post of yours, please point me to it, Neil.

Sorry Andy, you didn't actually miss it, but your comment was that it would be essentially a feature request. I think that's rubbish - it seems like a necessary option to make stats usable for anyone serving page elements from a gallery.

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=166491

I also posted in the following thread:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=155042

Once at post #17, then again at post #106. A couple of people replied commenting they have the same issue (including Jfriend) but no-one from Smummug commented on the obvious flaw in the usefulness of the overall stats...

Andy · July 17, 2011

TalkieT wrote: »

Sorry Andy, you didn't actually miss it, but your comment was that it would be essentially a feature request. I think that's rubbish - it seems like a necessary option to make stats usable for anyone serving page elements from a gallery.

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=166491

I also posted in the following thread:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=155042

Once at post #17, then again at post #106. A couple of people replied commenting they have the same issue (including Jfriend) but no-one from Smummug commented on the obvious flaw in the usefulness of the overall stats...

I've made sure the team sees this request. Thanks.

TalkieT · July 17, 2011

Andy wrote: »

I've made sure the team sees this request. Thanks.

Thanks Andy (but don't pull anyone off Foreign Currency Transactions to do this quick fix!! :-)

Cheers - N

TalkieT · August 2, 2011

Any update on this Andy? Is it going to be a feature request, or is it being treated as a flaw?

Regards
Neil G

b7j0c · August 3, 2011

hi Neil

stats is experiencing one significant issue right now, and that is miscounting of video stats. We recently made a change in the way we display videos to users, and as a result, one of our content distribution partners is interracting with smugmug in a way that results in videos appearing to be requesting multiple times. I have been working hard to reduce these repeated values, but a full fix is going to take some coordination with our distribution partner.

If there is another specific flaw you are noticing, please let us know and we will fix it. I'd much rather do that than add features which allow users to route around a problem that could be fixed.

thanks
brad

TalkieT · August 3, 2011

Hi Brad, please see possts 9 and 11 from thios thread, which refer to the problem I commented on months ago when the stats feature was just released and feedback was asked for.

I feel that at every turn, my feedback on this specific issue has been ignored. I'll restate it here.

Without the ability to exclude specified galleries from the stats, people using smugmug hosted graphic elements for customisations will find that their most popular photos and galleries are simply the galleries with their page elements. This renders overall site usage stats UTTERLY USELESS AND MISLEADING for them. Here's a screenshot... Note the 3 highlighted galleries are just for website customisation graphics, yet account for two thirds of the hits for my top 9 galleries for that month - and totally corrupt the overall hits.

Please tell me you at least see this as a problem.

Regards
Neil Gardner

b7j0c · August 3, 2011

hi Neil

this is a justified complaint. I understand your desire to not have to subtract these hits each time. I will try to get a solution in place in the next week or so to address this.

thanks
brad

TalkieT · August 3, 2011

b7j0c wrote: »

this is a justified complaint. I understand your desire to not have to subtract these hits each time. I will try to get a solution in place in the next week or so to address this.

thanks
brad

That's great... Thanks for the clear statement... Personally I don't feel there's a need to knock yourself out to get it fixed quickly (it's been like this for many months obviously).... Just the acceptance that it's basically wrong (or at least usability affecting) and will be fixed as a matter of course and not require an approved feature request is good enough for me.

Cheers - Neil Gardner

Understanding Smugmug Gallery Statistics

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