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Analytics Question - downloads/views

A topic by SuperSmashingGreatGames created Oct 17, 2016 Views: 5,804 Replies: 8
Viewing posts 1 to 7

Hi,

Just a quick question. The analytics for my game shows more downloads than views on the game page. This seems to happen every day. Whilst I'm not complaining if that many people are downloading the game, I'm just curious how the number of downloads is higher than the views. Are there ways to get to the download without viewing the page? Does it count multiple clicks, or different version downloads by the same person? Do robots and crawlers count as a download? The downloads are links to my own website...does that throw out the analytics?

Does anyone else get similar with their game? The numbers are still pretty small scale I suspect, so I hope this doesn't sound like bragging. It's the opposite in fact - as proud as I am of my game, it's hard to get my head around the concept of a better than 100% strike rate for downloads to views!

Moderator

You mean throw off. And yes, far as I can tell, each version downloaded is counted separately. So if most visitors download more than one file, it makes sense you'd see that.

throw out/throw off....potato/rhubarb...basically the same! ;)

Thanks for the response. I thought it would count different versions, I just wouldn't have expected so many people to download both the windows and linux or mac versions. But really I was just checking that there wasn't a general reaction of 'yeah, the analytics are really unreliable', I'm happy if it's just a sign people are keen to try it out! :)

(1 edit)

I've seen similar behavior on my account, but it was especially prevalent after a recent update I released. Shortly after the update released, I had about 15 additional downloads and registered only 1 or 2 additional views in that period. I do have multiple downloads available, but they're just builds for different operating systems, so it's unlikely people are downloading multiple versions.

Is it possible that there's a download link people can use to download updates (e.g. special email link) that could register a download without a view? Alternatively, could automatically downloading an update through the itch.io desktop client do the same thing?

FWIW, at one point earlier today, my account had 3 downloads and 0 views for the day. Based on that, I'm thinking this happens because of some method that can be used to download a game without registering a page view.

Admin(+3)

Games can be downloaded without visiting a page either through the app, or if someone owns the game and they go directly to the download page from their library.

Thanks Leaf! I had suspected as much, so it's great to have that confirmed.

It would be great some day to have more visibility into update downloads vs. new user downloads as well as some more data on where users came from. The data on the dashboard and what's available in Google Analytics can be a little lacking here, making it hard to properly attribute where a download came from. Not the end of the world though.

Love the site, great work!

i have 13 views and 83 downloads, what?

(1 edit)

I also noticed another curiosity that I can not explain: all the visits are visible in the view section of the dashboard, normally. Each bar is colored with shades of red and placing the mouse on it displays the name of the viewed program and the number of visits. A white bar appeared to me and placing the mouse on it does not display anything even if the amount is equal to 3. Why? If you have an explanation I will be very happy to receive it. Thanks for your attention and good work!

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