Why are the statistics inaccurate?

Tess: 06/27/2013 - 12:30 PM

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So are you saying that Wizzley doesn't have an Adsense Ad on each page? I didn't know that.

Nope, not that either.
For each article (where the author has set up an Adsense account) Wizzley has places for Adwords ads. According to the Wizzley rulebook, the following is the case:

If you have written less than 50 articles the ads are shown, as follows:

• 50% with the Wizzley ad code, 50% with your ad code

If you have written 50 articles or more (but less than 100) the ads are shown, as follows:

• 45% with the Wizzley ad code, 55% with your ad code

If you have written 100 articles (or more) the ads are shown, as follows:

• 40% with the Wizzley ad code, 60% with your ad code

Thus, by reporting ONLY those numbers of article visitors associated with your ad code, the Google Analytics data shows less than the actual number.

In the cases above, for:

• 50/50 = multiply by 2 
• 45/55 = multiply by 1.8182 (roughly)
• 40/60 = multiply 1.67 (roughly) 

in order to get the actual visitor numbers for Wizzley articles.

Sorry for the long-windedness of the reply but Wizzley does not have a simple relationship regarding articles:ad code display for all authors - it is a stepped ratio, as outlined above.

As far as your reluctance to promote, I know that you will not earn as much as you could. If it were a book you had written, promotional activity would be necessary in order:

1. To attract shops etc to place it on their shelves (this is equivalent to getting search bots and spiders to come looking, and finding your articles).
2. To make it known to end-readers so that they come to read whatever it is that you have written (think of this as similar to buyers requesting your book from the bookshop, library, Amazon or wherever).

If no promotion takes place then your (excellent) articles will only be seen by those that are told about them i.e. Wizzley readers ONLY, who are not allowed to click on any of the Google ads (they could click on other income generating opportunities such as Amazon and Viglink etc.).

That is really bad news. It also explains why articles that were doing incredibly well on hubpages and elsewhere are not selling here at all. If one of those articles were allocated to Wizzley, then i would, essentially earn nothing from them. That's not acceptable to me. i don't mind them earning half the income, but all the income on a particular article that makes money? I don't think so. 

Yes, I well understand advertising and promotions. i've done more business courses than i care to remember, many of them in marketing. i also always got As in all of them. So it's not that I don't know how to do it. I just find it distateful as, to me, it's essentially boasting. More than that, most people are sick and tired of all the advertising and promotions. It is estimated that people face approximately 3000 advertising and promotional messages each day. i simply don't want to add to that. I think it is ethically and morally wrong to use up people's energy and time. The only time it's acceptable is when they ask for it.

So, yes, I'm doomed to not earn. I also do write books and I don't advertise them for the same reason.

Tess: 06/27/2013 - 02:15 PM

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That is really bad news. It also explains why articles that were doing incredibly well on hubpages and elsewhere are not selling here at all. If one of those articles were allocated to Wizzley, then i would, essentially earn nothing from them. That's not acceptable to me. i don't mind them earning half the income, but all the income on a particular article that makes money? I don't think so. 

Where on earth did I say that 'Wizzley earns all the income on an article'?

They earn a percentage, as noted above, of EACH article.

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If you have written less than 50 articles the ads are shown, as follows:

• 50% with the Wizzley ad code, 50% with your ad code"

That might not have been what you meant to say, but your sentence structure means that 50% of the articles have Wizzley code and 50% one's own code. If you wanted it to mean that 5% of the code IN the article was Wizzley and 50% of the code IN the article was your own, then that would have been worded differently.

I have noticed over the last few days that the visitor count in statistics is very markedly lower than has been reported previously so it does look like some changes have been made.

I wasn't going to wade in on this thread, but I'm feeling brave.

Disclaimer: I'm probably wrong here. I usually am when it comes to stats.

But what it means to me is that with the 50/50 rule, to take an example:

- For half the visitors on your articles, the ads pay out to you

- For the other half, the ads pay out to Wizzley

So on that model you earn 50% of all revenue brought in by the article.

The visitor stats may or may not include bots, spiders, crawlers and other yucky creepy things, depending on how good the current blocking model is at recognizing real visitors from automated ones.

No possible visitor model is going to be 100% accurate, not even the sainted Google Gods can get it right all the time.

I'm sure someone with more knowledge than me will say yes or no accordingly.

Yup, Paula.  

yes, I understood that afterwards. Thank you.

Yes I think we are all a lot clearer - for me it was the level of divergence between the GA stats and the Wizzley stats that was quite a shock - but now we know what we are working with

Agreed. I don't believe I can earn money here. I did an Adsense course on Google Plus yesterday (It's a 10 week course if anyone wants to sign up) and they showed one how to compare what sites were doing best for one. Wizzley isn't doing well for me at all, yet I put more time in here than anywhere else. (Which isn't that much). But it earns the worst. So I had to think about it. I'm staying because it gives me a platform where everything is together  and it is nicely designed. :)