Can HP confirm that Traffic Stats and Earnings Stats are separate?

1. 91

   Susana Sposted 8 years ago

   There are a lot of hubbers that believe that the traffic stats inform the earnings figures. Considering that the traffic stats have not been working well lately it has got people worried that they aren't getting the earnings/impressions that they should be and this is damaging writer trust in HP.
   
   Can we get a response from HP staff on this one please?
   
   Thanks

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   1. 39

      AndrewHil93posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      The traffic stats are not reflective of earnings.
      
      Traffic shows how many people have read your hub.
      Earnings show how much you've earned from the ads on your hub.
      
      It's that simple.
      The higher the traffic, the more earnings you have but at the same token, different types of content and ads generate different amounts of revenue. Even Hubpages won't know for hundred percent definite what sort of contents earns most, it's a Google Secret to prevent adsense users from exploiting the system.
      
      But to answer your question, yes, traffic stats and earnings are separate. Further evidence of this is when the traffic stats update and the earnings stay the same. I believe the earnings are only updated once a day, the traffic stats once every few hours to once a week... My traffic stats haven't refreshed in 36 hours now but my earnings stats refreshed around 15 hours ago.

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      1. 84

         TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

         How in the world can you state that traffic stats are not reflective of earnings?  If you had no traffic you could not earn!
         
         First of all, when you post an article that has impressions, HP takes 40%. 
         Secondly, not all impressions are yours.  Those pay HP 100%.
         You can have many articles and plenty of people reading them, but if nobody clicks on their ads (or if there are no ads), you only earn from page views.
         Page views equal the number of people reading articles, aka...TRAFFIC!
         
         So, if you logic it out, there definitely is a relationship between earnings and traffic.  To say otherwise makes no sense.
         
         Thus, if the page view stats are not correct, the earnings may not be correct either.

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      2. 83

         Venkatachari Mposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, AndrewH. I also notice these things as mentioned by you. Earnings and stats are different. But, not necessarily do earnings get updated. They can also stagger for days just like views statistics. But, you can't relate your earnings with the views of hubs.

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   2. 72

      Matthew Meyerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, earnings are tracked independently of stats (they are different systems).

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      1. 84

         TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, but this does not mean that earnings do not relate to traffic, right?

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         1. 94

            wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, it relates, but don't confuse "traffic" with "traffic stats".  And don't try to make a numerical correlation, either - earnings cannot be derived from overall traffic as ads pay differently and vary from hub to hub and day to day.

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            1. 72

               relacheposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               This.

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            2. 84

               TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

               I just thought it was important to let people know that there is a correlation.  You are discussing the ways in which it does or does not correlate, but my point was that you can't say "Oh, earnings are not based on traffic", because one way or the other, they are.  Clearly there are variances.  The stats are supposed to show your page views.  Page views equal traffic.  I don't understand how the stats page can't tie in with earnings.  Just me, I guess.

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               1. 92

                  Sherry Hewinsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Of course traffic affects earnings. I think what others are saying is that, when the stats are wrong, our earnings are based on our actual traffic, not our HP traffic stats.

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                  1. 84

                     TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     Now that makes sense!  What does not make sense is why HP would post incorrect traffic stats!   There have been constant complaints about this for some time, and you can see why people are confused and worried.

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                     1. 92

                        Sherry Hewinsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                        I share your frustration with the stats being wrong. Why it has not been fixed is a mystery to me. It must not be an easy problem to solve.

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               2. 83

                  Venkatachari Mposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Time Traveller, It is in the sense that you can not say that if your views are 100 today and 50 yesterday, and your earnings were say one dollar yesterday. You can not insist that your earnings should be 2 dollars today, because traffic has doubled today from yesterday's 50. Earnings can be same one dollar or more or less depending on the ads and their rates per click or views.

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                  1. 84

                     TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     Yes, I know this.  All I am saying is that if you have no traffic, you make no money, so there is  a relationship there, albeit one that varies due to the things you just mentioned.

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            3. 77

               colorfuloneposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               Good explanation. No worries on earnings.

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2. 40

   ChristinSposted 8 years ago

   For what it's worth, I have seen staff say just that on other threads expressing concern over stats.  I wish they would make that part of the weekly email or a blog post so that everyone can see it and be less anxious *Hint Hint Staff! *

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3. 96

   PaulGoodman67posted 8 years ago

   I'm confident that HP assesses earnings stats correctly and I know that Google Analytics is available for following traffic - but I think HP does itself no favours by letting their own traffic stats stick or go awry so often.  Perception is important in the world of business and branding.

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   1. 94

      SmartAndFunposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I agree that HP is not doing itself any favors by allowing the stats to go such long stretches of time without updating. Of course I have no statistics or real proof, but based upon recent forum threads and low forum participation, I'd say HP needs to be doing whatever they can to woo good writers and long-time members in good standing rather than discourage them.

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4. 90

   Kylyssaposted 8 years ago

   They could always just add something to the stats page or FAQ saying the traffic stats usually update a few times per week.

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   1. 94

      SmartAndFunposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      They certainly could, but going from hourly to twice a week just gives a bad appearance, especially when members already seem to be worried that the site is troubled. Like Paul Goodman stated, "Perception is important in the world of business and branding." No/few/incorrect stat updates breeds feelings/perceptions of 'no confidence' among members.
      
      Additionally, I think stat checking kept many members logging in each day, or perhaps more than once per day. While those members are logged in, who knows, they may participate in the forums or decide to write a new hub. Now with no stat updates, there's no reason for many members to log in.

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      1. 84

         TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

         +1

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      2. 90

         Kylyssaposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         I agree that it would be in their best interest to just update the stats frequently like other sites do, but this horse has been beaten to death. HubPages just isn't that focused on writer retention and they aren't going to spend anything to fix the stats functions. If you look at old threads, people have been complaining about traffic stats for quite some time. If HP were going to do anything about it they'd have done it already.
         
         Letting people know upfront that the traffic stats don't work as most users would expect would help with the level writer satisfaction just a bit and it would be free or at least very, very low in cost. But since there are a lot of free things they could be doing to increase writer satisfaction, I doubt they'll do that, either.

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         1. 94

            SmartAndFunposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            That's too bad for us writers.
            
            However, this stats issue seems fairly new. Is it not? I don't think it has been beaten to death. And it's not the horse dying that I'm worried about -- it's the site dying.
            
            Just my opinion.

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               Kylyssaposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               The stats issue is at least 8 months old because I've seen forum posts about it in my feed since maybe a few weeks after I joined. There were even a few "I'm leaving HP" threads that claimed they were the last straw. Being a Squidoo transfer, I remember replying to one of them that it was no worse than the stat bugs and update issues Squidoo had.

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