Magicockerel Posted October 8, 2016 Share Posted October 8, 2016 So one of my mods (Workbench Control Panel, found here) has received approximately 4,000 views in the past hour (double what it originally had), barely any of which translated into downloads (less than 10) - to such a degree that it's making me suspicious. Is my page somehow getting view-botted? I have no idea what's going on, this started very suddenly and I don't have a way of finding the source of these views. I'd imagine legitimate sources of signal boosting (such as mod spotlights) would result in significantly more downloads per view. Any help would be appreciated. Edit: It seems to have stopped now, it's sitting at approximately 8600 views (compared to approximately 3500 views an hour ago). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve40 Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 It does look sus. Most mods have a view : unique downloads ratio of ~10-20%. Yours is only about 2.7%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magicockerel Posted October 9, 2016 Author Share Posted October 9, 2016 It does look sus. Most mods have a view : unique downloads ratio of ~10-20%. Yours is only about 2.7%.There was nothing suspicious until last night, at which point there was an hour where the page was gaining insane views for 60-90 minutes (I ended up gaining almost 5,000 views in this period of time). If you look at the stats page you'll see that I gained 5,128 views yesterday, almost 5 times the pages previous peak. In this 60-90 minute period, I received approximately 5 downloads - what I would consider normal, which makes me think my page was view-botted. While it was going on I could refresh the page and receive more than a view a second. However, once it stopped, it stopped immediately, making it all the more suspicious. Edit: In the past I tend to translate 5-10% of views into unique downloads, which the mod was on track for prior to this event. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlahBlahDEEBlahBlah Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 It does look sus. Most mods have a view : unique downloads ratio of ~10-20%. Yours is only about 2.7%....umm, less "most" and more "you've had some really good luck" (and much longed for ideas, apparently...~2400 downloads for Flickering Fire and No Halloween Decorations, for example. Pal, that's "knowing the audience" for sure. Not even gonna mention the ~33,000 one...)...Us regular joes would die for a 1/10 ratio. ...maybe someday. Little more on topic: Note something funny on Beth recently also (though most assuredly unrelated, it is a bit coincidental), https://community.bethesda.net/thread/86070 . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magicockerel Posted October 9, 2016 Author Share Posted October 9, 2016 <snip>That seems to be regarding fake downloads though, which is an entirely different matter. A single account could spam refresh on the page to fake views, whereas you'd need a new account for each unique download. However, it's odd that someone would want to fake either for a mod they have no involvement in. It's not like fake views benefit the mod page at all, considering everything seems to be sorted by endorsements. If anything, it just makes it looks less appealing, as it reduces the mods downloads per view. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlahBlahDEEBlahBlah Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 I did note "assuredly unrelated". ;-)Almost as assuredly, the two sites are set up completely different. Remember when Beth first started that and they were only polling results every 24 hours? =P Towards the end of that page, I (MidForever) actually attributed it to a database error or small bit of corruption, or a bad calculation entry. I'm actually gonna do the same here...well almost. I'd say, off the top of my head, a database hiccup and/or (the "well almost" part) an unintentional delay in the posting of polled results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magicockerel Posted October 9, 2016 Author Share Posted October 9, 2016 (edited) <snip>I wouldn't know much about Bethesda.net. I've been trying to ignore Bethesda's site as best I can. I've only used it a couple times in the past when I had to, and that was far from a pleasant experience. I doubt it was a database hiccup considering it appears to be an isolated incident and the views accumulated over a 60-90 minute period and then suddenly stopped. I'd imagine a database hiccup would result in an instant boost in views, rather than them accumulating over time. Edit: That's not to say that it couldn't have been a database hiccup, I just find view-botting (or something to that effect) more likely. Edited October 9, 2016 by KernalsEgg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damanding Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 You might want to ask one of the site admins to poke around the website statistics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magicockerel Posted October 14, 2016 Author Share Posted October 14, 2016 You might want to ask one of the site admins to poke around the website statistics.Sorry for the late reply, but I suppose that's a good idea. I just didn't want to waste their time. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to point it out to them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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