Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-10-15/Traffic report

Now introducing ... mobile data

As reported in the Signpost last month, mobile views have not been historically included in the raw page count data provided by the Wikimedia Foundation. That has caused stats.grok.se as well as the WP:5000 report on which this report and the WP:TOP25 are based to lack that data. And this has led to a significant under count in total page views, as mobile views now account for about 30% of Wikipedia traffic. However, we are pleased to report that the WP:5000 has now been updated to include mobile views, including a column reflecting the percentage of views coming from mobile devices. This week's report is the first using the additional data.

We've noticed two primary effects from the inclusion of mobile view data so far. First, and most obviously, view counts are up. This week's #1, Ebola virus disease, had almost 4.3 million views, the best showing of a #1 article by far since the incredible 9.1 million which Robin Williams received after his death in August. To simply make the Top 25 this week, it took 484,791 views -- a big jump from only 240,000 views last week.

Second, we can also see that the percentage of mobile views an article receives varies by the type of article it is, as well as the source of its popularity. This week's #3, Moose, became popular due to a Reddit thread but only had 26% mobile views. Perhaps that general percentage will prove to hold true over time for Reddit popularity -- #6 this week, Age disparity in sexual relationships, was also made popular by a Reddit thread and had 26.5% mobile views.

Meanwhile, this week's #1 (Ebola virus disease) had 54.4% mobile views and #2 Ebola virus hit 64%. Contrast those numbers to this week's #10, Thor Heyerdahl, made popular by a Google Doodle. Only 15.7% of those views were from mobile sources. And Deaths in 2014, an article which often makes the Top 10, was reduced to #23 this week with only 19.9% mobile views. One might suppose that the very lengthy list-like (and sobering) nature of that article may make it less popular to read on the go. We'll continue to review how the inclusion of mobile data affects trends in article popularity, feel free to add your hypotheses to the comments.

For the full top 25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions.

For the week of 5-11 October, 2014, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages, were:

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Very interesting break down. Would be interested to see where these percentages go and change as the Top 25 team accumulates data. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:51, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes - the mobile %s vary hugely, and we can expect to see some interesting analyses of what gets views on what device. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 12:48, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• The sentence in Moose is no longer as it reads above. That was not correct grammar and didn't make clear who was swimming. I assume the moose were.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:59, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I assume both were. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:17, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • That works, but then if that's not made clear you wonder what the moose were doing.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:10, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• When do you estimate that stats.grok.se will include mobile views? Softlavender (talk) 06:32, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Softlavender, I have no information about that.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 12:09, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]