hope: Art of a woman writing from tour poster (owen & ianto look at gwen with puzzlemen)
puddingsmith ([personal profile] hope) wrote2009-02-26 10:53 pm

CONFUSED

As We Happy Few has not had a terrible lot of feedback and I'm still terribly fond of it, I've been watching my google analytics to have warm fuzzies over just how many hits it's been getting (and digging out the occasional rec, hurrah).

BUT THIS CONFUSES ME, FLIST: The top referral domain for that story is community.livejournal.com, which makes sense - it's divided up between [livejournal.com profile] torch_wood, [livejournal.com profile] torchwood_fic and [livejournal.com profile] torchwood_house. BUT THEN, the bit that baffles me - the majority of the top ten referrers after that are people's friends pages. Like, seriously, the next two after the communities are two friends pages in particular - each of which bring AT LEAST one hit per day *for the past month*.

I am confounded. These people don't even have my friended, so they wouldn't be getting it from me (even if I did link to the story every day, which I don't). And links have not been posted on the communities listed above for at least a month. And generally, if there's been a rec somewhere that people are clicking on, there'll be a referral listed there from the particular entry. But there's not.

Any ideas?



ETA: tangent, but still related; I must say the most enjoyable feedback for this story has been in situations such as sitting having a quiet cuppa with someone who says wistfully out of the blue, "I wish I had a cloak made of ties."

[identity profile] linaelyn.livejournal.com 2009-02-26 11:01 pm (UTC)(link)
When I read my friendspage, I get communities interspersed with individual journals. If I click on a fic link from my friendspage, would that make the referring site be my friendspage?

Maybe these couple of frequent referrals are folks who don't have you friended, but who ADORE your story and read it EVERY DAY. Just a thought.
ext_230: a tiny green frog on a very red leaf (Default)

[identity profile] anatsuno.livejournal.com 2009-02-26 11:08 pm (UTC)(link)
a few friends of mine sometimes put a link to a story they love in their linklists on their ljs to have the link handy right there... in which case it would show both on their friends page and on the front page of their lj, and imo they're more likely to use the link from the friends page layout margin, cos that's what they're reading.. no?

just a possibility.

[identity profile] nixwilliams.livejournal.com 2009-02-27 12:00 am (UTC)(link)
what if it's flocked? would that make a difference?

[identity profile] nixwilliams.livejournal.com 2009-02-27 08:41 pm (UTC)(link)
i admit, i have no idea! sometimes i get referrals in a similar vein, and it's a mystery!

[identity profile] hansbekhart.livejournal.com 2009-02-27 02:44 am (UTC)(link)
Oh snap, you know, I never left any feedback but I LOVED that story. It made me laugh so fucking hard and made me want to cry. It was really amazing and fun and thoughtful.

[identity profile] hansbekhart.livejournal.com 2009-02-28 09:17 am (UTC)(link)
Honestly, I think I had the tab open for a week so that I would remember to leave feedback, and then I closed it in a fit of early morning confusion or late night drunken confusion. That's what usually happens, at least. And then I see a link for something and go ...... did I leave feedback saying how totally amazing I thought that was?? Because that's what I wanted to do. Because it's absolutely wonderful and just such a genuinely weird story. I should go reread to remember exactly what I loved, but I remember it was mainly Tosh, because she was fantastic.
amalthia: (Default)

[personal profile] amalthia 2009-02-27 04:14 am (UTC)(link)
sadly, I have no clue what is going on with how people are finding your story.

amalthia: (Default)

[personal profile] amalthia 2009-02-27 04:15 am (UTC)(link)
p.s. I completely plan to read your story. I just kind of got sucked into Merlin and am now reading these novel length harry potter stories I missed the first time I was in HP fandom.

[identity profile] derryderrydown.livejournal.com 2009-02-27 08:53 am (UTC)(link)
"I wish I had a cloak made of ties."

WHAT KIND OF WEIRDO WOULD SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT????
wenchpixie: (geekery dean)

[personal profile] wenchpixie 2009-02-27 05:41 pm (UTC)(link)
People are freaks.

Also your fic is delightful.

[identity profile] rexluscus.livejournal.com 2009-03-02 03:59 am (UTC)(link)
I don't understand why this fic doesn't have 100 comments by now. (I saw this post because I came over to your journal to reread said story, naturally.)