Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-07-10/Traffic report

Inflated view counts here, there, and everywhere

Summary: Last week proved one thing—we have a lot to learn. So many articles had high views for no discernible reason that it became pointless to exclude them. If any of you have ideas as to from whence these oddities emerged, please let us know, as we can always use new sources! Think of this then as our all view-spikes are created equal list; each given due prominence regardless of its creator or particular endowments.

Thankfully, this inclusive policy didn't affect the Top 10 much; to see the full effect you should check out the Top 25

For the week of June 30 to July 6, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:

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10 July 2013 (all comments)

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• This is a very interesting Signpost feature, thanks for writing it. NW (Talk) 17:26, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Can someone explain why this article has so much traffic. Thanks for your help. --DeansFA (talk) 20:03, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Melanie Maddison was a recurring high entry on WP:TOPRED for some time, so someone probably created an article for her (which is now deleted). I suspected the high view count comes from some sort of spam service the subject employed to improve her search engine results. The TOPRED list has seen similar results for things like 18K Gold Watch, Hollow Body Guitar, and New Jersey Wedding Photographer in the past.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 11:36, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks so much for your answer Milowent. --DeansFA (talk) 14:07, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Arrow (TV series), I can't see how this would cause a big jump, but WCCB changed its affiliation to The CW on July 1.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:38, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the Spike in interest with the Arrow had to do with it being listed in a list of most downloaded episodes from file-sharing services (I forget where exactly this list was). Then people (like me) where like - zuh? the Arrow? Really? That's one of the top downloaded shows? Really? And I imagine a number of them went to Wikipedia because they had no idea what this show was or why it would be so popular (I knew what it was, but I am still unsure as to why it is so popular) 173.61.149.213 (talk) 15:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In regards to Yahoo!, the company has been in the news quite a bit recently. I'd guess that people like me who thought that it had gone out of business ages ago are Googling it and the Wikipedia article is one of the top results. Nick-D (talk) 23:15, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• This is a great feature, always interesting to read, and the conversationalist tone used throughout complements the quirky nature of the subject matter. Please keep them coming! Daniel (talk) 00:23, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Hmmm, Chikako Watanabe doesn't even have an entry on jp wiki? At least, no interwikis linked. If that's true, it's really weird. Another spam red flag? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 18:50, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]