Query about view duration

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   innerspinposted 11 years ago

   In the hub stats, view duration shows up as stars. Some of my longer hubs have five stars. One of the shorter ones, which has good search engine traffic, shows as three stars. I'm wondering if this means readers skip out before the end, or if it's because It's a shorter piece, therefore they would read it more quickly. I may re-think the layout, but don't want to tinker if the search traffic could be affected. Any comments please?

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      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I have always assumed that it is a rough measurement of the time spent on the hub.  Shorter hub = lower reading time = fewer stars.
      
      I don't know that to be true, however, just a guess.

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   Mark Ewbieposted 11 years ago

   My best piece of writing, arguably, has a duration of two stars.
   
   I am assuming that a large percentage of visitors don't want to read it, so they back arrow after a quick scan.
   
   It's nearly all boring words!
   
   I sort of hate those people.  They are coming to my page, one of the few 'decent' things I have written, and saying "Oh I didn't want this".
   
   Meanwhile Google will use this measure and make sure I am starved of traffic., 
   
   Moral of story.  You cannot use keywords to target the exact right reader all the time.

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      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Keywords, as I see it, are for google to do it's best to target and show articles the reader might want to see.  A guess on google's part as search terms used are often an attempt to describe something other than what google thinks is wanted.
      
      Your summary is your chance to improve that targeting guess; a good description will discourage readers that are actually looking for something else and hopefully encourage readers that want what you've got.

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         Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         The title says what it is.  The summary says what it is.
         
         And they arrive and bounce.
         
         I hate 'em.

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            innerspinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Beat them with a stick, Mark! OK, that's a little harsh. Naughty me.

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               wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               I don't know - he does seem to have lots of sticks...

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      Cantuhearmescreamposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      So the question I've been struggling with is; Google likes longer article with more content and I'm assuming HP scores hubs higher in that case. On the otherhand, a lot of readers don't want to give up a lot of time on every page they visit on the internet. They want quick answers or quick stories so long as it doesn't compromise much of their time. So do you write longer articles to satisfy the grading process and google or shorter articles to appeal to the typical audience?

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         MelissaBarrettposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I'm going for longer article broken down into easily scannable (yes I know it's not a word) bits. I'm trying to make short sections with lots of headings... the effect is "look here stupid" without actually saying "look here stupid"

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            Cantuhearmescreamposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Melissa,
            That actually sounds like a pretty good theory and the humor doesn't hurt.

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            summerberrieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            This is what I've been trying to do as I tweak hubs out of idle. I tend to write in large paragraph blocks, now I'm using bullets, table of contents and pretty much spacing after every three sentences or so.  Also, I'm adding in those "cute" little page brakes ----we'll see.....

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         innerspinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         That's the $64,000 question. I know I sometimes bail out before the end of a long article, cos I only wanted a quick answer, or "taster" of a subject. The current message seems to be go for longer hubs.

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            Cantuhearmescreamposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            There are some excellent articles here that I open and begin to read because I am actually interested in the article and equally impressed with how well it was done, but find myself leaving the tab open to come back after I tend to other things because I realized the article is quite lengthy and there is so much to do and so little time. It might take me all day to read a 10 minute article.

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      Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Have you looked at the 'average time spent on the page' feature in analytics?
      
      I have pages that get a long read time according to analytics but only 2 or 3 stars in HP's view duration.
      
      I've always thought it was to do with slide show view times being included with the page read times and averaged out. If you see what I mean.
      
      By the way, I saw one of your Squidoo pages recently. The girder picture raised a significant titter. I am little too old for that kind of thing (unexpected titters) so please be more careful where you put your pictures in future. At least include a warning. 'May result in Titters' or similar, prominently displayed.

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         aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I have learned from painful experience to strictly observe health and safety measures when reading Mark's hubs and lenses.
         
         Most importantly, never  combine with drinking hot coffee or tea.  Can result in damage to screen, or to the lining of one's nose.

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            Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Perhaps we need to replace stars with skulls to warn of the potential for serious injury, lol.

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         Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Hey cheers Will.  Sorry about the titter.

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            Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I was only joking. I need as many titters as I can get. They just don't seem to need me so much these days...

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   LongTimeMotherposted 11 years ago

   When people come back to view new comments, they don't need to spend time reading the whole hub again. They just scroll down to the bottom and see what people are saying. I imagine that would explain at least part of the short viewing times.

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   Gcrhoads64posted 11 years ago

   I had to look to see what you all were talking about. Where my stars should be it says - still collecting data-. Is there a special "star" club I should know about?   

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   Sheri Fayeposted 11 years ago

   I am new and can't see stars either

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      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      It takes time for HP to collect data; they aren't going to tell you average view duration based on 10 views.
      
      I don't know, though, how many views they want.  100?  5,000?  Don't know.

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         Gcrhoads64posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks, Wilderness.
         It's not 100 views. 

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   saqisgdposted 11 years ago

   good one of them

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