Senior Full-Stack Developer and a Community Curator on DEV!
"α΄ κ±α΄α΄α΄α΄Κ κ±α΄α΄ Ι΄α΄α΄ α΄Κ α΄α΄α΄ α΄ α΄ κ±α΄ΙͺΚΚα΄α΄ κ±α΄ΙͺΚα΄Κ" - κ°Κα΄Ι΄α΄ΚΙͺΙ΄ α΄ . Κα΄α΄κ±α΄α΄ α΄Κα΄
Not seeing a breakdown of external referrers for some posts. In a team discussion, it was suggested that these views may have been from dev.to but miscategorized. Either way, it is unusual for there to be no other referrers.
Expected behavior
A clear breakdown of the different referral sources, such as:
In the issue you mentioned, it's showing "All other external referrers":
But in my case, it's showing "Direct / Unknown":
Is it still the same issue? I read the current issues, but couldn't find a similar one. Maybe there are that many Direct / Unknown visits? From bots perhaps?
Senior Full-Stack Developer and a Community Curator on DEV!
"α΄ κ±α΄α΄α΄α΄Κ κ±α΄α΄ Ι΄α΄α΄ α΄Κ α΄α΄α΄ α΄ α΄ κ±α΄ΙͺΚΚα΄α΄ κ±α΄ΙͺΚα΄Κ" - κ°Κα΄Ι΄α΄ΚΙͺΙ΄ α΄ . Κα΄α΄κ±α΄α΄ α΄Κα΄
Senior Full-Stack Developer and a Community Curator on DEV!
"α΄ κ±α΄α΄α΄α΄Κ κ±α΄α΄ Ι΄α΄α΄ α΄Κ α΄α΄α΄ α΄ α΄ κ±α΄ΙͺΚΚα΄α΄ κ±α΄ΙͺΚα΄Κ" - κ°Κα΄Ι΄α΄ΚΙͺΙ΄ α΄ . Κα΄α΄κ±α΄α΄ α΄Κα΄
Yeah, I saw that a few months ago. It gets even weirder when you look at followers, read times, etc. ALOT of Dev.to traffic is bots. For what purpose? Probably data mining for AI training? So dont pay much mind to the stats, it's the same reason why you wake up 1 day and suddenly get 200+ new followers, but when you look at their profiles, most are just generic shells, no comments, no posts, not even a bio.
Actually 1 of the reasons why I made DevGuard, they havent implemented it yet, but it's essentially an anti-bot system (I had some experience bypassing WAF with MCP-Lite, so I used that as the basis of how to flag a bot), that counts for profiles, readers, comments, everything. Cuz it's traffic that they pay for, people think that hosting a server is all it takes, but you pay for network use too and the bots likely account for a serious amount of traffic...
So, that's probably the reason behind the many followers on my profile who haven't read a single one of my posts? I have also got a few purely promotional comments that have nothing to do with my post. Fortunately, they were automatically removed. But I still got the notification.
Yip. It is unfortunate, 99% of them woulda been filtered out if they used cloudflare proxying, but it is what it is. That's why readers and readtimes cant be trusted, so best option is run on engagement to judge (comments and likes). The bots have no reason to like or comment and the bot comments are (mostly) filtered out.
I suspect ad blockers are to blame. It also depends on how many people actually viewed your article. In my case, I had 842 views from "other," over 2,000 from Google, and another 1,500 from some other source. I think that's normal.
AI testing storyteller. Writing the 36 Stratagems series β ancient Chinese military tactics meet modern AI system meltdowns. 16yr QA β building AI test framework.
AI testing storyteller. Writing the 36 Stratagems series β ancient Chinese military tactics meet modern AI system meltdowns. 16yr QA β building AI test framework.
@jess Brought this issue up on Forem awhile ago, but seems to be fix (question mark?)
Describe the bug
Not seeing a breakdown of external referrers for some posts. In a team discussion, it was suggested that these views may have been from dev.to but miscategorized. Either way, it is unusual for there to be no other referrers.
Expected behavior
A clear breakdown of the different referral sources, such as:
Screenshots
I would raise up in the issues on Forem again since sometimes it is fixed, but later it comes back.
In the issue you mentioned, it's showing "All other external referrers":
But in my case, it's showing "Direct / Unknown":
Is it still the same issue? I read the current issues, but couldn't find a similar one. Maybe there are that many Direct / Unknown visits? From bots perhaps?
Probably similar? Not sure what Direct / Unknown is referring to, but I would bring this up on the Issues on GitHub.
But I am unsure what to say about the issue. We do not have the actual number of Direct / Unknown views, right?
Yes. Try your best to describe what your experiencing. Otherwise, if others have questions, they will let you know!
Yeah. Then I'll open an issue about my original problem - too many Direct / Unknown views. Is that ok?
Yeah, I saw that a few months ago. It gets even weirder when you look at followers, read times, etc. ALOT of Dev.to traffic is bots. For what purpose? Probably data mining for AI training? So dont pay much mind to the stats, it's the same reason why you wake up 1 day and suddenly get 200+ new followers, but when you look at their profiles, most are just generic shells, no comments, no posts, not even a bio.
Actually 1 of the reasons why I made DevGuard, they havent implemented it yet, but it's essentially an anti-bot system (I had some experience bypassing WAF with MCP-Lite, so I used that as the basis of how to flag a bot), that counts for profiles, readers, comments, everything. Cuz it's traffic that they pay for, people think that hosting a server is all it takes, but you pay for network use too and the bots likely account for a serious amount of traffic...
So, that's probably the reason behind the many followers on my profile who haven't read a single one of my posts? I have also got a few purely promotional comments that have nothing to do with my post. Fortunately, they were automatically removed. But I still got the notification.
Yip. It is unfortunate, 99% of them woulda been filtered out if they used cloudflare proxying, but it is what it is. That's why readers and readtimes cant be trusted, so best option is run on engagement to judge (comments and likes). The bots have no reason to like or comment and the bot comments are (mostly) filtered out.
Yeah. It's quite good at filtering comments. But it has many false positives. But that's ok, it works.
You mean devguard.org? Or something else?
I suspect ad blockers are to blame. It also depends on how many people actually viewed your article. In my case, I had 842 views from "other," over 2,000 from Google, and another 1,500 from some other source. I think that's normal.
WOW! First time seeing such high numbers! So we can see it in that much detail? I didn't know that so many people on DEV use ad blockers.
Maybe Google's crawler
Is it similar in your posts as well?
yes
Yeah, you are right! ππ»
For the first time the graph is flipped!