Referrers?

[J_Chemist]

I've been trying to get a firm grasp on how SH actually tracks things like viewership and the link, but the one thing that always sort of gets me hung up is the 'Referrers' tab. From my understanding, these are like originating links and things people have clicked on in order to get to your story. If that is incorrect, please fix me.

So, if that's true, then that makes this even funnier.

Do you see it? I hope you see it.

My book ain't no Girls Love novel but someone, somehow, was able to get to it via that search. Of course, you can generally test the originating location to see if it actually links to your novel (as sometimes other novels will point to yours if they're similar or share readers). And, obviously, being ever curious I went and looked and no I did not find my novel.

So, is this more of a glitch or a random occurrence? Or at some point do y'all think my story was filed under the GL tab for a moment? I didn't catch it at the time it was searched, as the above snapshot is from a day ago, but that makes me wonder if the system makes some accidents here and there.

 

[Agentt]

Listen, Tony works in mysterious ways. And SH algorithm is kinda...broken.

 

[Cipiteca396]

Most likely you or someone else was searching GL, then used a bookmark or <- backed out directly to your story.

The referrer's tab doesn't look for a direct link, it just reads the last page you visited. Probably.

 

[Snusmumriken]

It is also possible that they received notification and jumped from their previous search right into your chapter. I often see "referrals" where people come from random chapters of other stories with no obvious link to mine.

 

[J_Chemist]

It is also possible that they received notification and jumped from their previous search right into your chapter. I often see "referrals" where people come from random chapters of other stories with no obvious link to mine.

Most likely you or someone else was searching GL, then used a bookmark or <- backed out directly to your story.

The referrer's tab doesn't look for a direct link, it just reads the last page you visited. Probably.

While I would think that I'd see more of this on release day rather than four days in, it would explain the hop. I've also seen some random chapter links in other stories that never quite made sense. But, if they have the book bookmarked or if there's some quite of quick link set up, then the slide over is understandable.

Seeing GL was a new one.