Statistics

Is it possible to get statistics on our referrals, at least a total views?  I can see how many pages they have, but that is about it.

Hmm...wouldn't that be a privacy issue?

If I sign up under someone, all I'm told is that they get 10% of the Wizzley impressions. Actually would a referree even know that much? That's different from telling me that they get access to my performance data and can therefore see which niches and keywords perform well.

That is food for thought when people ask me to sign up under them. Now I'll be less likely to do it.

Digby, I think you are over-reacting a bit. Actually, Paula didn't want to have access to impressions, only total page views. However, we haven't enabled this because of privacy concerns.

I always overreact...it's who I am. I wasn't thinking of Paula specifically. I didn't sign up under anyone here. Just in general, when people ask you sign up and be one of their referees, privacy is something I should think about. The whole issue had gone over my head before. So many things to think about, so few brain cells.

I do like the way Hubpages does it - you get total views for ALL referrals under that referral ID. All you get is a total number of views, which I don't see as a problem.

I also know that now HP is on subdomains you can simply go into your Adsense breakdown and see how much each referral's subdomain is giving you in earnings and impressions.

Just my two cents and food for thought.

If we provide the overall page view stats for all your referrals, and you have only one referral, then we'd run into privacy issues because you could see another members page views.

Maybe after a minimum of five referrals? Although I guess you'd face the same issue if only one was writing. Active referrals?

The same problem would apply at Hubpages though, maybe there's something in there privacy policy that applies. Hmmmm....

Wry again I guess we just see the world differently, why is this so important? I see it as a major privacy issue. I think that if you are going to be able to see any of their data at all, this fact should be disclosed prior to signing up under you. And if the game changes now, referees should be given a chance to leave as a referral.

Even if it is aggregated, I'm leery of people who pick up one piece of data here, another there, and then put two and two together.

Of course I spent hours today reading through the entire Google privacy statement and deciding on my course of action, because I do put a premium on privacy. And I deleted many many profitable hubs when HP went subdomain, because I saw the poachers in full swing.

Digby,

I don't really mind either way. You can never fully trust anything online, and if they wanted you not to get your full "referral juice" I'm sure they could stop you getting it. As long as I'm getting money, I'm fairly happy.I just like playing devil's advocate.

However I know that I was referred by someone here, and based on the fact that I have 70 articles, I don't think them knowing I'd had however-many-thousand views over my entire account would do them much good. If they really wanted to, they could probably work out which articles were my best by the articles that have the most likes, tweets, thumbs up, comments etc anyway!