WordPress Giveth, and WordPress Taketh Away

Blogging, happiness, humor, lessons learned, technology 1 Minute

It took a lot of restraint on my part not to write about the exciting day I had two days ago with regard to my WP stats.

By 10:00 in the morning, I had more than 4,000 views. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for the huge spike; normally I’ve been getting around 500 views per day. There was no particular post that generated a large number of views; it seemed to be a combination of my Home Page (with nearly 2,900 views) and a very long tail of posts with just two views. I ended the day with 5,102 views.

One potential explanation is that a judge with a mean streak sentenced someone to read at least half my blog posts. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.

But alas, the excitement was short-lived.

Yesterday, by 8:00 at night, my blog post was on pace for less than 300 views for the day, which would have been the lowest number of views in a couple of years. But somehow it rallied, and I managed to crack the 400 view barrier, with 401.

So both days, for different reasons, I was checking my blog stats a lot more than I usually do, which is already way too much.

I think the WP Happiness Engineers are just sitting around drinking egg nog, and seeing which one of their users would be the easiest one to drive crazy by manipulating their stats.

Needless to say, they found their victim…

Published by Jim Borden

A 60-something guy trying to figure out the world, and his place in it. Happily married for 40-plus years, three wonderful sons. Accounting teacher, fitness enthusiast, blogger, reader.

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76 thoughts on “WordPress Giveth, and WordPress Taketh Away”

  1. Haha I rarely check views.. I just assume only the people commenting are the only ones viewing my posts but then once in a while I will accidentally click on the stats and then become perplexed by how many ppl view it (still not many) but don’t end up commenting! Oh well, to each their own!

    Liked by 4 people

  2. That’s an interesting spike! Did you look at the source of the views? That may tell you something about it; is it mostly google searches? Is it from Facebook where someone may have shared a link to your home page? Is it Russian bots? WHatever it is, that’s a nice spike to have 👏👏👏

    Liked by 3 people

  8. Perhaps you inadvertently insulted the government of some foreign country, and they’ve been reading your blog trying to figure out what to do about you. Watch out for poison-tipped umbrellas and canes.

    Liked by 3 people

  11. Happened to me last week. I got a notification by email and through the app that I was skyrocketing. So I looked (I never do). I was legit over 5x higher than ever before. The next day I had 50 less but it was all from the reader and every post I had tt pinged like 2 or 3 times that day. I didn’t get any spam comments or likes I didn’t know, but those stats were astronomical to match. I knew I was suddenly bombarded those days, but it didn’t actually click until I looked. Then, just as suddenly, I dropped down to half of my usual average. That lasted 2 days, although the comment numbers abd likes didn’t match the numbers (how can you have more likes and comments tallied in a day then you have views??) then, just as randomly it went back to my average. Yours happened a week later, but you’re the 4th person that has mentioned an insane and random spike that just as quickly disappeared.

    Liked by 2 people

      1. Yep. Don’t know what’s going on. When I mentioned it to the Happiness folks, they told me that I misread my stat. Yeah. The giant blue bar graph, with the gigantic number that pops up when you scroll over it clearly involved this user’s error. I mean, there’s neurosurgery and then there’s WP stats page. I may have always been terrible at math, but even I have the mental capacity to see a blue bar that’s 5x higher than usual and kinda just grok it. So no actual answers came from them. 🤷🏻‍♀️

        I created a theory. There’s no way to prove this of course, but that’s why it’s just a theory. There was a glitch that went around kinda random and sporadically. Every time you replied to any comment on your page, the program counted you ask a viewer too. So if one person messaged you five times, and you replied, your stats were suddenly 5x inflated for no rational reason. They corrected it within 24-48 hours and the stat bloating gremlin moved on to someone else’s page. But they don’t want you to know about the gremlin because it’s still kinda roaming around in there somewhere. They’re afraid if everyone knows about it, they will get a flood of “did it happen to me?” And then they can’t properly track and not quite catch the gremlin.

        Honestly, it’s a theory I concocted when I hadn’t slept. Now that I’m not sleeping again it makes sense again. But it probably doesn’t. Sleeplessness makes silliness of even the most serious, stalwart situations. (I know that last sentence doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’m not that far gone. I just went with the alliteration)

        Merry, Happy, Healthy, and Harmonious to you and yours!!

        Liked by 2 people

  12. They found a willing victim, didn’t they! I’m happy if I get anywhere near 500 in a week, let alone a day, so I don’t think you have much cause to worry 😊

    Liked by 3 people

  14. My spikes seem to relate to my home page and someone in Turkey seems to be reading it many times..or its a bot…my spam is off the chart lately and from the same people apparently so why WP can’t do something I don’t know but anyone caught in spam as someone was the other day but on the first page luckily so I marked them as not spam may be marked spam unintentionally by me…enjoy the spikes, Jim… I do!

    Liked by 2 people

  17. Huh, that’s a pretty cool spike. They definitely happen quite often, where sometimes the views will stay flat for a long while, and then suddenly you receive a sudden spike.
    As you said, a judge sentencing someone to read half of the posts is a very plausible explanation

    Liked by 2 people

  18. I like your theory! Except, did you scroll down to see where those gazillion likes were from? This has happened to me three times, and my recent spike was from Turkey. Hmmm…I don’t know a soul from there.

    Liked by 2 people

  19. That’s such an interesting anomaly. But what’s even more interesting is that 500 a day (or even 300) is pretty darned good. Just goes to show how much work you’re putting into this, and that you’re headed down the right path. Because while there can be a spike or two, the averages say it all. Keep on keeping on, Jim!

    Liked by 2 people

      4. I think the key with posting is consistency, and not quantity. If people expect you to post weekly, then I think the key is to post weekly. If people expect you to post daily, then you need to post daily…

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