What is considered a small, average or large number of views for a comic?

It depends on where it's hosted and what tier of popularity and recognition that you're in.

On DD a small readership is below 100 views a day. Average is above 100. Large is 1000 plus.
If you're getting 1000+ you'll probably be in the top ten. Over 15K-20K and you'll be around number 1 spot here, maybe.

In the wider webcomic world, in terms of serious popularity and advertising revenue and all that stuff bellow 10k is small, 25k plus is probably average and 100k is is large. With a few comics sitting on the extreme end like PVP, Penny Arcade and such.

Wow this could be the shortest thread ever I think ozone just gave pretty definite answer.

It was some interesting stats tho.

I think that was a typo though, that 1000 plus is Top Ten-worthy. Probably meant 10,000 plus. My comic's been doing 1000 plus since forever and it's always languished in the top 50.

Yeah I assumed that was a typo. I think there are a lot of comics that would love to languish in the top 50 :)

You don't need 10k to be in the top ten. 1000+ is a general figure, depending on the average total hits that the rest of the top ten are getting- that goes up and down. ...and you have to remember that it's actually uniques that matter and hits are only the broadest indication of those. :)

Specifically though, to get into the top ten now you'd need at least around 3k, or 5k to be safe.

Newway12
What is considered a small, average or large number of views for a comic?

We're very new to the DD community as well, so we were quite perplexed with the stats system until Ozoneocean just clarified it.

I really like Auslander, and I think you'll have a lot of uniques following you :) it will be interesting what happens when we both get bumped off the featured page...

Damn, I thought my comic was beginning to gain traction because it was averaging 52 hits a day.

I clearly have a long way to go.

Always remember that these numbers have a large margin or error because we're just talking about views here, not uniques:

- If a comic has a lot of pages and people who're visiting it are reading a lot at a time, it'll have a lot of views even if it doesn't have many uniques visitors.
- Maybe most of the readers have already read your whole archive, so your daily views represent mostly unique visitors who're just coming to check out the latest page? In that case your views will be low but your rank might be high.

There are a lot of different variations on that.

Also to put it in perspective thing about the sheer number of comics on DD, granted a lot of them may no longer be updating but it is still a large number. If views are consistent then I guess that means people are coming back.

And if I might throw my two-cents in from a marketing perspective, a lot depends on what you're trying to accomplish with your readership. A small but loyal and active readership can be very beneficial.

If you're trying to use your comic as a stepping stone to playing with the big boys, then it won't so much matter how many people read your comic -- but WHO reads it. For that, you're going to want to do some leg work, and get to know people in the industry. Start at the bottom (contacts of contacts of contacts) and work your way up. I've done a little poking into the industry and I can tell you that a fair number use Twitter and Tumblr, and many keep blogs.

If you're just trying to make money off your comic -- that's a hard road to take, and it's also when you really do need numbers.

I recommend using Google Analytics. It will give you a clearer picture of your audience beyond simple views.

I remember checking my views once, and feeling like people had just tuned into the Season Finale of a TV show when Issue 1 of 'Keeping Up with Thursday' wrapped up. xD

30 to 110 skyrocket boost. :D

LOL, then again... it mighta been people revisiting the same page over and over. D:

Lower than 100...sounds like my comics.

Yay for bad ratings!

I'm amused by the views. Some days I get 10 or 20 hits, and I think to myself 'ah, one or two people just read the most recent chapter." The next day I have 150 views, and I think to myself "ah, two people just read the archives." So far, it seems to oscillate between the extremes. But it never occurs to me that more than two people are gonna look at my comic on any given day :p

I've had the same experience as ramlama but there is evidence that the number has increased. How do you tell the difference between the huge spikes when the update posts and the total lack of any views the days you don't?

What weirds me out is comics that don't update ever, but manage to stay in the top 50 forever. Like, Bouncing Orbs of Beauty hasn't updated since September of last year! So is it attracting thousands of new viewers every day, or is it the same horde of people checking it daily "just in case" all these months? Jeez, I wish I had readers like that! My comic does really well when I'm updating but if I'm not posting anything new then it's like it doesn't even exist.

El Cid
What weirds me out is comics that don't update ever, but manage to stay in the top 50 forever. Like, Bouncing Orbs of Beauty hasn't updated since September of last year! So is it attracting thousands of new viewers every day, or is it the same horde of people checking it daily "just in case" all these months? Jeez, I wish I had readers like that! My comic does really well when I'm updating but if I'm not posting anything new then it's like it doesn't even exist.

It's because of links.

Those are a comics lifeblood!
Once ads are gone, links remain. When a comic is popular enough for something it gets links to it spider-webbing all over the net. Something like Bouncing Orbs, which is a fine porn comic, will have links to it from heaps of popular adult blogs, forums and list sites!

If you want your comic to do that sort of thing and you think it has a similarly broad, adult appeal, then you should visit popular and unpopular adult blogs, forums and list sites and drop a bit of info about your 100% free adult comic... but given that yours is a little more extreme... maybe that'll apeal even more to various types of audience out there. I'm sure they find such things hard to come by. Maybe someone will even offer you money to host it on a pay site?

It does happen.

Say what? Links? Ads? From sites outside of Drunk Duck? Madness I say!

I... guess it wouldn't kill me to actually, um, advertise my comic every now and then...

Oh, and I actually have had quite a few offers in the past to do work for pay sites, but I always turn them down. There doesn't seem to be any money in adult comics outside BDSM/torture and gay erotica, which I don't do, and the few hellish experiences I've had doing commissions have pretty much put me off doing anything art-related for profit, ever.

If I can trick one person into reading my comic then I'm satisfied. And no mom you don't count!

Let me get this right about page hits and views.

If 1 to 15 pages are viewed it is listed as 10.
If 16 to 25 pages are viewed it is listed as 20.
If 175 pages are viewed it is listed as 170.

Now if ONE person reads 100 pages it is 100 hits but only counts as 1 unique hit.

But if 100 people read 1 page each it counts as 100 unique hits.

And 100 people reading one page will boost your popularity higher than one person reading 100 pages...correct?

meemjar
And 100 people reading one page will boost your popularity higher than one person reading 100 pages...correct?

It'll boost your rank higher; yes.
Honestly, I'd rather the one person reading a hundred pages than 100 people each reading one page. If you've got a hundred people and they're each reading only one page... well, at least you're good at advertising.
I'd rather even more having a hundred people each reading a hundred pages.

meemjar
Let me get this right about page hits and views.

If 1 to 15 pages are viewed it is listed as 10.
If 16 to 25 pages are viewed it is listed as 20.
If 175 pages are viewed it is listed as 170.

Now if ONE person reads 100 pages it is 100 hits but only counts as 1 unique hit.

But if 100 people read 1 page each it counts as 100 unique hits.

And 100 people reading one page will boost your popularity higher than one person reading 100 pages...correct?

I'm not sure about where the rounding cutoff is (but the new site will apparently show accurate numbers anyway), but the rest is correct.

I've noticed too that when you hit about top 100, the spots get pretty competitive compared to after 100. Like, if you're at #50 and you get a ton more views compared to the previous day, you'll advanced maybe to #47 rather than leap past 100 slots. Likewise, if you have a little less views than the previous day, you drop down pretty hard.

It does seem to get harder to move upward once you're in the top 100. Time Girls is ranked #77 overall and I got 1140 pageviews yesterday and only moved up a few spaces. But, I'm pretty consistently getting 700-1000 every day (I usually update every day). I only have 24 pages up so far so I know it's not one person reading 500 pages every day, still I wonder how many people actually read it. I have 6-8 people who always comment on pages.

I haven't tried advertising it, I always feel 'weird' spamming a forum or just imposing on a blog or something just to say, 'Hey, check out my webcomic!'

I did notice Google picked up my 'pinups' page on DD and I've got a lot of good search words in the meta

Ya, this is because you reach the higher curve of the graph ^_^

I've just done a quick sketch here from memory of the sorts of data- Seems to be that when you factor in the big numbers our uniques are pretty unevenly spread out so that the top 30 or so comics get most of the traffic on the whole site...



It'd be interesting to see all of the data represented more broadly as a pie chart so we can see what proportion of the whole uniques each comic takes up! I suspect that when all grouped together the rest of the comic ranks would still make up a significant portion within the pie.

It'd be interesting to see all of the data represented more broadly as a pie chart so we can see what proportion of the whole uniques each comic takes up! I suspect that when all grouped together the rest of the comic ranks would still make up a significant portion within the pie.

If you can get me the data I can make it happen. I am also curious about referring site data so if you happen to have those stats I can also try to give everyone a better picture of what sites bring in the traffic to which kinds of comics.

smkinoshita
If you can get me the data I can make it happen. I am also curious about referring site data so if you happen to have those stats I can also try to give everyone a better picture of what sites bring in the traffic to which kinds of comics.

I don't have access to referring site data and I can't get you the unique or page view numbers for everyone either since that'd involve the exhausting task of going through each and every comic stat listing separately to get it, and with so many comics on this site that'd be impossible. besides, stat data for individual comics is private and they'd have to agree for me to give it up :(

ozoneocean
...Seems to be that when you factor in the big numbers our uniques are pretty unevenly spread out so that the top 30 or so comics get most of the traffic on the whole site...

I'd guess that's because the bulk of readers only search through the first page or maybe two pages under the Browse tab? My comic seemed to get a big boost as soon as I made it to #23 and started showing up on the first Search page. It's probably the second best thing to being featured on the main page. There's some kind of snowball effect that goes on there. On the one hand, it does take a lot more views to advance once you get higher up, but also a lot more people are willing to give your comic a chance when they see it's gotten popular.

On the other end of that, though, that must make it more difficult for comics that are below #23, because the higher-ups have a built in advantage... which sucks for me, because I'll probably be taking another mini-hiatus for the next couple of weeks and I sooooo don't want to lose my sweet spot on the first page! *sigh* Oh well! I'm sure at least my die-hard fans will still be there when I get back. Um... if I have any of those...

El Cid
I'd guess that's because the bulk of readers only search through the first page or maybe two pages under the Browse tab?

That's a part of it certainly. But once comics are through the top ten numbers are sort of exponentially higher...
Most of their numbers are made up of people who come directly to look at their work, not going through the front page.

El Cid
which sucks for me, because I'll probably be taking another mini-hiatus for the next couple of weeks and I sooooo don't want to lose my sweet spot on the first page! *sigh* Oh well! I'm sure at least my die-hard fans will still be there when I get back. Um... if I have any of those...

By some project Wonderful ads. They're cheap and easy to use.
If you want to retain that position and get new readers it's the best way.