# How do page view counters work?



## FlamingLizard (Jul 18, 2011)

I know if I kept hitting F5, the page views counter will not go up.  I don't think it means that whatever the number is means that many different users have clicked to the page.


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## Tiger In A Tie (Jul 18, 2011)

FlamingLizard said:


> I know if I kept hitting F5, the page views counter will not go up.  I don't think it means that whatever the number is means that many different users have clicked to the page.


 
Actually, I'm pretty sure that's how it works. I think anytime a user other than yourself clicks the page, that makes the pageview count go up by 1. From what I've seen, the owner of the account cannot increase their own pageviews. And this is just speaking from past experience and what I've noticed on fA.


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## Cyril (Jul 18, 2011)

Are you sure? I swear I've seen my pageviews go up after clicking on my own profile... then again, I do click on my own profile a lot for various reasons so it probably should be higher if it counted every time I viewed my own profile.


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## FlamingLizard (Jul 18, 2011)

Nightfire Tiger said:


> Actually, I'm pretty sure that's how it works. I think anytime a user other than yourself clicks the page, that makes the pageview count go up by 1. From what I've seen, the owner of the account cannot increase their own pageviews. And this is just speaking from past experience and what I've noticed on fA.



The only reason I don't think that is the case is because there was one time in which a friend of mine as almost at a page view milestone was going to do something for the first person to post a photo of the page at that page view.  It was at ##92 and I kept hitting F5 but the counter stayed constant.


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## FlamingLizard (Jul 18, 2011)

Cyril Daroun said:


> Are you sure? I swear I've seen my pageviews go up after clicking on my own profile... then again, I do click on my own profile a lot for various reasons so it probably should be higher if it counted every time I viewed my own profile.


 
Well I've clicked my account page about 20 times in the past 5 minutes and it's stayed on 637.


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## Onnes (Jul 18, 2011)

My first guess would be that it is IP based so as to count views by guests. However, from what I've seen the pageviews number on FA seems remarkably suspicious--I have to wonder if it has more than a few bugs in it.


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## Tiger In A Tie (Jul 18, 2011)

FlamingLizard said:


> The only reason I don't think that is the case is because there was one time in which a friend of mine as almost at a page view milestone was going to do something for the first person to post a photo of the page at that page view.  It was at ##92 and I kept hitting F5 but the counter stayed constant.



I don't think it goes up at all for ANYONE that sits and refreshes. I believe it has to be one view, then completely leave the page, then go back to it to make the counter go up.


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## Werewolfhero (Jul 19, 2011)

well it will eventually go up if you hit f5 enough times, but only "if" someone else happens to visit the page while doing so. That's how there are instances where multiple people can submit kiriban pics showing say "50,000" page views for example.


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## Devious Bane (Jul 20, 2011)

Ugh, I forgot /exactly/ how it works but here's what I can recall
*cough*
FA looks for _unique_ views, each _unique_ view has about a _24hour waiting period_ before it counts again.
I do believe you affect your own pageview count, but when you view the page the counter is already updated with your view(Ping comes before pong, I believe it updates upon being pinged).
Your actual pageviews are not recorded by means of how often your page is requested/pinged, therefore - unless certain conditions are met - it will not increase.


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## dragonlover81 (Jul 20, 2011)

Devious Bane said:


> FA looks for _unique_ views, each _unique_ view has about a _24hour waiting period_ before it counts again.



This is probably a good thing. No pageview selling like on DeviantArt. Someone crashed DeviantArt two months ago by running a script that added everything in site to his favorites, as a way of advertising his pageview selling business. Selling pageviews and favorites there is allowed, but he got banned for overtaxing the servers.


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## DragonTalon (Jul 22, 2011)

I tested this in the past and yes, viewing your own pages did make your own views go up (which it shouldn't!).  But I wanted to verify that before saying so... and now I can't make my older submissions go up at all.

I used the "Stats" tab to track view counts and looked at a year old general submission from different IP addresses, even had some friends with FA accounts look at it right now... no change at all.  For several different pictures too. 

Weird.  Is it delayed for older submissions?  I can see my view count increase when I refresh the page of a new submission while it's still on the front page.


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## Smelge (Jul 27, 2011)

I think the most accurate response to this is: "They don't".


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## Werewolfhero (Jul 27, 2011)

For image views it probably is somehow tied to the user account. And since the uploader automatically sends you to the pic, your one view count would already be applied. (so a different user who's never seen your work might make the image view go up.)

Which might make sense in order to prevent you from forcing your pic to appear more viewed or popular than it normally would be.


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## TechKat (Sep 1, 2011)

Just gonna point out, it's on a 24 hour Unique visit. But it registers your Username and IP.
If you were to go on a proxy now and login using your account, you may notice the pageview doesn't go up.

Clever works.


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## Dr. Durr (Sep 1, 2011)

TECHKAT

Y U NO READ POST DATES


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## Arshes Nei (Sep 1, 2011)

Dr. Durr said:


> TECHKAT
> 
> Y U NO READ POST DATES



And the rest of the thread for that matter. Closing due to needless stinky necro.


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