Thread view count

Do guest views count toward the total, or is it just for registered members?

Members Only 🤷

I find myself wondering about this as well 🤷

@stana
Are you quite certain?

Walter Fowler53 said:Does this count guest views too, or just registered members?

Every single view counts toward the total, regardless of whether someone is logged in or just browsing as a guest. Every time the thread is opened, it registers; if you visit ten times, it’ll show up as ten views, even if it's all coming from the same browser cookie.

Yeah, except one reading counts for two.

rustybadger89 said:Even if you use the same cookie, ten views will still count as ten separate views.

I'm not really sure what cookies have to do with how things are counted. Usually, a counter tracks one of two things:
-Total hits: Every single time a user visits or just refreshes the page, it counts as a new hit.

Or it tracks Unique visitors—meaning it looks at the user's current IP address and counts them once. In that case, the counter only ticks up by one, no matter if you click or refresh the page 44,556 times. It won't budge again until you change your IP (like reconnecting or using a proxy server...).

As for how this specific forum handles it, I honestly haven't a clue. It all depends on what kind of tracking software they're running. Maybe check in with one of the site admins.

Raymond Campbell35 said:I’m not quite sure how cookies tie into the actual counting mechanism. Usually, these counters track one of two things:
-Total views: Every single hit from a user—including every time someone hits refresh—gets added to the tally.

or Unique views: This tracks the user's current IP address. One visit equals one count. No matter if you click or refresh the page 44,556 times, the counter won't budge. It stays static until you switch IPs, maybe by reconnecting or routing through a proxy server...

As for how this specific forum handles it, I honestly couldn't tell you. It all depends on which plugin or counter they're running. You might want to check in with one of the site admins to get the specifics.

Well, cookies are definitely used for user identification. Technically, someone could write a custom modification so the counter ignores repeat reads from the same user.

The standard vBulletin setup doesn't actually include a "unique view" option (at least not out of the box), so with a default installation, you're really just looking at total view counts.

If a major site like Reddit didn't count guest views, their numbers wouldn't even be half of what they show now.