HorseAddict

What Happened?

Yesterday I got a message from WordPress that my stats were booming.

BOOM! The comment told me I was getting 1,054 hourly views which is WAAAY more than normal. At the end of the day I looked at my stats. I had 2,289 views, and of those 2,142 had been to a piece I posted back in August titled “A Seriously Misplaced Protest”. This post was about two protesters who had run out onto a jump course while a horse and rider were on the course and competing. Fortunately no one was hurt but it could have been disastrous for the protesters or the horse and rider.

So where did all these views come from? 2,073 of them came from Twitter. The USA had the most with 1,971 views. I do not have a Twitter account and I am not interested in having one so there is no way I can look to see what may have caused this surge.

Also of note was the fact that none of these viewers posted a comment or other response. Was this because they did not realize what the post was about? Were they looking for some other protest?

Has anyone else had something like this happen?

Posted

in

by

anne leueen

Tags:

, , , ,

Comments

38 responses to “What Happened?”

  1. Darren Johnson Avatar
    Darren Johnson

    On the issue of commenting. If a post is shared on social media people are much more likely to comment on the post via social media rather than directly at the bottom of the WordPress post. I share all of my posts on Twitter and Facebook and 99% of people who comment do so via Twitter and Facebook, rather than via WordPress.

    Reply
  2. Sagittarius Viking Avatar
    Sagittarius Viking

    I think this is likely going to happen to you every time there is a big protest that gets attention in media, since you used that word in your post.

    Reply
    1. anne leueen Avatar
      anne leueen

      I think it will only happen if the post is shared by someone like the journalist who shared it to their one million followers on Twitter. Thanks for commenting and all the best for Christmas and the New Year in Sweden.

      Reply
  3. Emma Cownie Avatar
    Emma Cownie

    If yiur blog gets a tweet by an account with a lrage number of followers this can happened – it did with me and Donegal Tourism a while back. So not necessarily bots.

    Reply
    1. anne leueen Avatar
      anne leueen

      I agree. I have seen the twitter page that featured my post and I can see it has had a lot of shares. Fellow Blogger JD gave me the link as I do not have a Twitter account.

      Reply
  4. JD Avatar
    JD

    This will probably go to spam, but you can see the tweet here: https://twitter.com/soledadobrien/status/1207321724250836992

    My own experience in blogging for over ten years: more people read than ever comment. Sometimes google updating their search indexes will cause an uptick.

    Reply
    1. anne leueen Avatar
      anne leueen

      Ah! Thanks for sharing this Tweet feed. That seems to make sense. Twitter can generate a huge volume of views. I think you may have come up with the answer! Thank you.

      Reply
      1. Invisibly Me Avatar
        Invisibly Me

        I’m not all that technical but I’m glad someone found the Tweet for you. I’d also say that a few shares around Twitter could likely get the post out to reach hundreds of people pretty quickly. Well done, blogging superstar! 😉xx

        Reply
        1. anne leueen Avatar
          anne leueen

          Thanks but I am no superstar. My part in the blogoshpere will go back to normal now.😀

          Reply
  5. JD Avatar
    JD

    Anne, Soledad O’Brien (a news journalist w/over 1M followers) tweeted out the post on her twitter account. So, yeah, a lot of folks saw it! Soledad also is an equestrian. It was a supportive post/tweet.

    Reply
    1. anne leueen Avatar
      anne leueen

      I did follow your link in the other comment and I can see her post. I am glad to see that it was also positive and equestrian related. Thanks so much for this. The mystery is solved!

      Reply
      1. JD Avatar
        JD

        You never know who is reading! 🙂

        Reply
        1. anne leueen Avatar
          anne leueen

          Yes! Good point.

          Reply
  6. Robert Parker Avatar
    Robert Parker

    That’s quite a surge! Well, perhaps even if it’s based on readers looking for news about the impeachment, there may be some horse fanciers among them, who’ll be glad to see some positive posts, and take a break from politics.

    Reply
    1. anne leueen Avatar
      anne leueen

      That is a positive way to look at it. I know I need a break from it and I’m not even American. But we have stuff going on up here too. Thanks for commenting .

      Reply
    2. anne leueen Avatar
      anne leueen

      Fellow blogger JD found the answer on Twitter. A news journalist who is also an equestrian and has 1Million followers post the link to my blog post on her Twitter feed .

      Reply
      1. Robert Parker Avatar
        Robert Parker

        Oh that’s great!!

        Reply
  7. MichaelStephenWills Avatar
    MichaelStephenWills

    I take it your view and visitor count was the same. Possible a link to your post was placed on twitter.

    Reply
    1. anne leueen Avatar
      anne leueen

      Yes the counts were the same. I suspect it may have gone on Twitter and people were expecting it to be about a protest associated with the impeachment process as this was on the day that there were protests connected to the impeachment process in Congress.

      Reply
  8. thewellb3ing Avatar
    thewellb3ing

    Regarding your post, could it be due to the number of protests surging around the world and your post has “protests “. Views from non WordPress subscribers or users are counted too (I confirmed this with WordPress support). I posted a Christmas vlog on 1 Dec written by a Chinese guest blogger who spread the word to her friends. Though they’re not WordPress users, their views counted and I similarly had “your stats are booming…” message from WordPress!

    Reply
    1. anne leueen Avatar
      anne leueen

      I think you may be right. These views came from the USA and perhaps people were looking for protest news about the impeachment vote in Congress. They all came for Twitter.

      Reply
    2. anne leueen Avatar
      anne leueen

      Fellow blogger JD found the answer. It was a post on Twitter that shared the link. The person who posted is a news journalist and also an equestrian and that is where all the action came from.

      Reply
      1. thewellb3ing Avatar
        thewellb3ing

        I’m glad you found the answer 😊

        Reply
      2. Gayle Jorgenson Avatar
        Gayle Jorgenson

        Awww, it looks like I’m late to the party. 🙁
        I have a Twitter account, so I was gonna look into it for you. But at least you got some answers. And congrats on the stats! 🙂

        Reply
        1. anne leueen Avatar
          anne leueen

          Thank you Gayle. It was an interesting but temporary blip.

          Reply
  9. dprastka Avatar
    dprastka

    That’s interesting, never heard of this before and I don’t do Twitter either. Hmm.. congrats on the stats though!

    Reply
  10. popsiclesociety Avatar
    popsiclesociety

    Never happened but congratulations on the number 😉🎉🎊

    Reply
  11. Judy Avatar
    Judy

    Yep, had that happen last week. My sister rolled her eyes and said, “Spam.”

    Reply
    1. anne leueen Avatar
      anne leueen

      Another blogger said it was bots. I would be interested to know what prompted it and what they hoped to achieve.

      Reply
      1. Judy Avatar
        Judy

        Good question, as most of my hits were from India. Computers are strange beasts. LOL!

        Reply
        1. anne leueen Avatar
          anne leueen

          They are and the internet is a beast we really only have a small understanding of. Tip of the iceberg really.

          Reply
        2. anne leueen Avatar
          anne leueen

          I got the answer JD found the Tweet that instigate it all. A news journalist who is also an equestrian put up the link. She has a million followers so that is where is came from.

          Reply
          1. Judy Avatar
            Judy

            Wow! That’s legitimate. Cool.

  12. susiesopinions Avatar
    susiesopinions

    Probably was a ‘bot’. Congratulations on the number.

    Reply
    1. anne leueen Avatar
      anne leueen

      Ah a ‘bot’. I think you may be right!

      Reply
    2. anne leueen Avatar
      anne leueen

      Turns out it was from a Twitter feed. Fellow blogger JD found the feed and the link to my blog post was put up by a news journalist who is also an equestrian .

      Reply
      1. susiesopinions Avatar
        susiesopinions

        That’s brilliant.

        Reply
  13. Paula Light Avatar
    Paula Light

    No. That’s bizarre!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Discover more from HorseAddict

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading