I think for this community, it's more about content of interest than anything else to determine rank.

Seriously, I'm thinking of Nadya which is done beautifully by D0m. His comic started out slowly with a few weekly to bi-weekly updates, yet word of mouth and his fantasy-esque content blasted him up in the top 100 (if you're around D0m, please correct me if I'm wrong). That sort of mystique is a draw here, especially when his art and storytelling is so compelling.

Same with a comic like Panda Panda - not here very long, excellent word of mouth, originality, a FEATURE EVEN! I'm guessing Panda Squared is in the top 100 too.

I truly believe it goes beyond updates at times. There just isn't a magic bullet sans yaoi, swords, breasts and gratuitous violence that will attract all the necessary readers to move a person up to the number one spot.

Oh yeah...and longevity! A comic that's been around here for 200+ pages surely cannot be below the 500 rank.

Fitz
Yeah unless you update at least 3 times a week, one's more likely to be closer to the bottom than to the top. With my biweekly update schedule I'm in and out of the top 1000 even with a faithful bunch of readers (20-30 comments per page). As of late, I consider 40 views a day a good day :\

I'm planning on starting a daily or Mon-Wed-Fri strip. Hopefully that'll help me get more readers.

With Werewolf, I thought doing once a week would be good enough, but it seems as though three times a week attracts a bigger audience. I'm going to hopefully get to a point where I can do it and penis daily, so that I can have two top rated comics.

Its hard to believe that some people with as good a comics as they make don't have the audience that penis does. It makes me feel bad. :( Especially on days where I get no comments or e-mails, but I have over a few hundred readers that day.

Course there are guys around here getting thousands upon thousands of readers everyday. A part of me likes where I'm at right now. Most everyone reads penis, if not daily than every other day, but its not well known enough that its jumped the shark or gotten stale. I figure once I make the move to animated cartoons, then it will have the fanbase and popularity to make me tone things down or hear so many negatives about stuff that I decide not to do certain jokes. Even now I've taken advice from readers or others within the industry to adjust what I do. You read penis from five months ago and read penis from the last two months, and theres a bit of different taste to it. Course the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I've started doing more and more traditional humor with setups and punchlines and less of the avant-gaurde unfunny humor that I like to do. Its still there, but I'm almost at a point where I think the artwork needs to move up a few more notches. Maybe even go for photo realism in the cut and paste artwork.

Marine
Especially on days where I get no comments or e-mails, but I have over a few hundred readers that day.

In terms of motivation, I'd rather have Fitz's 20-30 comments per page than your 100's of views but zero comments. That might as well be nothing (does help your rank, of course).

And of course it's best to have both.

And cosmically hilarious to have neither.

mlai

Marine
Especially on days where I get no comments or e-mails, but I have over a few hundred readers that day.

In terms of motivation, I'd rather have Fitz's 20-30 comments per page than your 100's of views but zero comments. That might as well be nothing (does help your rank, of course).

And of course it's best to have both.

In terms of preference
Favorites > Comments > Views

I prefer gaining a new favorite more than anything because that gives me a better view of people that want to keep up with my comic. Silent viewer or not, they enjoy it enough to want to see it update and that means a lot to me! ^_^

Sidwarrious
No what I mean is:

#228 in Comic Book/Story #325 Overall

That's me today. But I don't feel I should be that high since, yeah I got alot of views, but NO comments and NO faves. So, sure alot of people read my comic, but no one felt it worthy to say anything to me or fave me. It's like I'm a highway sign. Sure everyone sees me, but then no one cares after they've moved on.

Not complaining. 10 faves is enough for me.

It'll be people who either just don't want to comment, or can't think of comments.
Or people who aren't registered that read your comics.

Its not that I don't get any comments (at the least one or two people leave one) and I do occasionally get e-mails from readers. Its just that if I have a week where I get five or six or I somehow get into the ten or twelve area, I get spoiled. Then when everyone stops commenting, I feel all sad.

blntmaker
Seriously, I'm thinking of Nadya which is done beautifully by D0m. His comic started out slowly with a few weekly to bi-weekly updates, yet word of mouth and his fantasy-esque content blasted him up in the top 100 (if you're around D0m, please correct me if I'm wrong). That sort of mystique is a draw here, especially when his art and storytelling is so compelling.

You're totally right, man. This communities' been great to me.

It's always ebb and flow, ebb and flow. And it can hurt.

I am in fact quite happy I managed to win a group of readers who stop by whenever I update. Some leave, after a while, new ones come along, and I do have way more readers than in the beginning. But there's always this need to expand, get MORE readers, MORE views, MORE faves, isn't there? It does make me sad that after the biggest single day of 220 views, back in early September, I never even approached that number again, even though I think my art has improved DRAMATICALLY since then. Just the same as it's sad that after 10 comments just overnight after the most recent update, I got no comments for a couple of days, barely any views on the next day and no views on the day after that. As I post each page, I think: oh, this is good, if this ain't gonna get me noticed, I don't know what will! But that never really happened, either. Oh well... Dreams are what keeps us going and makes us try harder. But it's also what will leave us disappointed, a lot of times.

Then again, when I'm back to reality, I realize how lucky I am to have such amazing fanbase - which I can't call little, either. A bunch of friends on DD, who always check back, and even some people outside DD who check back hoping for an update. I'm happy that I'm able to impress my sis, who's an amazing artist, herself, and soon-to-be art major. I never really studied art, most of the things I learnt was by trial and error. And what makes me the happiest guy ever is that I genuinely love making this comic and seeing how it can turn out better than I originally intended, sometimes. And I think that's important: that it's fun for me, too.

marine
Its not that I don't get any comments (at the least one or two people leave one) and I do occasionally get e-mails from readers. Its just that if I have a week where I get five or six or I somehow get into the ten or twelve area, I get spoiled. Then when everyone stops commenting, I feel all sad.

I usually get 2. One from Garretjax, a real life friend of mine and the other from Dylanthenoodle. Maybe Rut every now and then and that's my commenting viewership. I'd rather be rank 5000 or something if I was getting ten POSITIVE comments a day. Negetive comments can go blow it out their own ass. Too many of those on the other sites when I was jes starting out.

fern
Teenage Wasteland
#66 in Comic Strip #212 Overall

BFF
#1,118 in Comic Book/Story #1,764 Overall

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
#2,932 in Comic Book/Story #4,860 Overall

They Are Night Zombies They Are Neighbors They Have Come Back From The Dead Ahhhhh
#146 in Comic Strip #475 Overall

You Have Fallen Through The Cracks Of Our Quick Fix One Hour Photo Instant Oatmeal Society
#629 in Comic Strip #1,729 Overall

One Hundred Percent Of All Relationships End In Tragedy So What Makes You Any Different
#1,016 in Comic Book/Story #1,577 Overall

One Third Of Your Life Is Spent Sleeping One Third Of Your Life Is Spent Working And Half Of One Third Is Spent Waiting The Question Is It Really Your Life
#190 in Comic Strip #600 Overall

Daphne Descends
#356 in Comic Strip #1,080 Overall

FiF
#1,570 in Comic Book/Story #2,541 Overall

Digital Exodus
#1,911 in Comic Book/Story #3,091 Overall

Good Day Sunshine
#1,227 in Comic Strip #3,183 Overall

Dear god, you are a machine! A robit I say!

For Experiment 20 KATCH it's #614 in Comic Book/Story #917 Overall

how amusing~ i don't even count Fox Face yet, we'll get to that later =P

I think my comics have been lasting in the low top 100s because...
I've been here for a while (3+ years) and I always manage to stubbornly update at least once a week or more.

Even though I have been going down in the rank for a while. DD's getting bigger and there's many good new comics here now.

I think I like the comments best here. I feel I've been doing a good job if I impress the readers enough to say so in the comments/or email It's hard to tell if I'm doing well with only favs, rank, and hits.

Exzachly

fern
Teenage Wasteland
#66 in Comic Strip #212 Overall

BFF
#1,118 in Comic Book/Story #1,764 Overall

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
#2,932 in Comic Book/Story #4,860 Overall

They Are Night Zombies They Are Neighbors They Have Come Back From The Dead Ahhhhh
#146 in Comic Strip #475 Overall

You Have Fallen Through The Cracks Of Our Quick Fix One Hour Photo Instant Oatmeal Society
#629 in Comic Strip #1,729 Overall

One Hundred Percent Of All Relationships End In Tragedy So What Makes You Any Different
#1,016 in Comic Book/Story #1,577 Overall

One Third Of Your Life Is Spent Sleeping One Third Of Your Life Is Spent Working And Half Of One Third Is Spent Waiting The Question Is It Really Your Life
#190 in Comic Strip #600 Overall

Daphne Descends
#356 in Comic Strip #1,080 Overall

FiF
#1,570 in Comic Book/Story #2,541 Overall

Digital Exodus
#1,911 in Comic Book/Story #3,091 Overall

Good Day Sunshine
#1,227 in Comic Strip #3,183 Overall

Dear god, you are a machine! A robit I say!

My only purpose in this world is to receive 5's... nothing else... nothing more.

Ever since my feature on the front page my ranking jumped way high... now I'm 54 in Comic Book/Story and 83 overall.

Gavin
Ever since my feature on the front page my ranking jumped way high... now I'm 54 in Comic Book/Story and 83 overall.

Congratulations!!!

Money making idea: pay to be featured. lol

#112 in Comic Book/Story #162 Overall, #6 in Superhero.

I've just started again after a month-long hiatus and I'm almost back where I was before the break. I think it was something like 90 in Story.

I think I had about 70 faves last I checked, but I have a Mac now, so no more DD Alerter.

as of today...#79 in Comic Book/Story #112 Overall/#10 in Horror.
after the front page feature blitz it has gone down quite a bit and will probably continue.
Had garnered new readers and that's super cool.
But I don't see it hitting top ten status any time soon.

TheMidge28
as of today...#79 in Comic Book/Story #112 Overall/#10 in Horror.
after the front page feature blitz it has gone down quite a bit and will probably continue.
Had garnered new readers and that's super cool.
But I don't see it hitting top ten status any time soon.

You get an extra rank for horror? That's kind of neat.

BloodHound totally deserves a top 10 status - at least in the top 100. What a great comic!

My stuff has improved quite a bit over the weekend.

Temple : #297 in comic story / #431 overall / 16 faves

@$$hole! : #262 in comic strip / #835 overall / 21 faves

I don't think you get an extra rank for Horror in the My Control stats. Do you? I don't get an extra rank for Manga.

I think Midge means by searching in the Search & Browse tab, and clicking Horror.

B/H was a good feature. Definitely should feature a wide variety of art styles and genres on the front page, and B/H fits both criteria. This encourages new artists of all breeds to make an account on DD.

Edit: Oh right, the manga/horror subpages. Forgot about those.

Thanks mlai and trevor for the support!
I don't think its like an extra stat...well I don't know.
But when you click the different front page views...like Horror or Manga...it list comics specific for that genre. When I clicked Horror, comes up in #10 spot. That's how I found out. But what mlai advises would also apply for other genres.

Here's the list of top ten Horror:
Innocent

Modern Day Witchdoctor

Consumed

Blood Nation

Ghosting *

Demon Eater

Tales From The Cornerstone The Midnight Shift *

Nightfall GN

Thirst of Angels

bloodhound *

And here's the list for top ten Manga:

Friction

The Dragon and the Lemur

LOVEMAGIC

Nemution Jewel

Get Up and Go

Star Crossed Destiny *

GRIND *

Wayrift *

Mob Ties

Within Shadows

blntmaker
I think for this community, it's more about content of interest than anything else to determine rank.

Seriously, I'm thinking of Nadya which is done beautifully by D0m. His comic started out slowly with a few weekly to bi-weekly updates, yet word of mouth and his fantasy-esque content blasted him up in the top 100 (if you're around D0m, please correct me if I'm wrong). That sort of mystique is a draw here, especially when his art and storytelling is so compelling.

Same with a comic like Panda Panda - not here very long, excellent word of mouth, originality, a FEATURE EVEN! I'm guessing Panda Squared is in the top 100 too.

I truly believe it goes beyond updates at times. There just isn't a magic bullet sans yaoi, swords, breasts and gratuitous violence that will attract all the necessary readers to move a person up to the number one spot.

Oh yeah...and longevity! A comic that's been around here for 200+ pages surely cannot be below the 500 rank.

Nadya and Panda Panda deserve all the accolades they get. You know this reminds me of a couple of times on other forums where I've seen some, ah, insulting things said about Drunk Duck as a whole. Mainly they over-generalize and stereotype and talk about sprite comics or poory rendered manga. And I think to myself, what? I spend some time on DD, I poke around. I find stuff like Nadya or Panda Panda or Bloodhound . Or heck, I see them up on the feature bar. And I go look at em then (like I totally admit to not catching on to The Dreamer until it was featured very recently but the artwork is amazing, so I'm glad it got featured). And I just think how crazy that criticism sounds. There's great stuff on this site that you all are putting out. There's a wide variety of genres and content. So yeah, sorry to go off on a tangent. It's just the accolades you folks receive and the rankings and the comments and the features and the interest, all of it is well deserved.

I think I prefer comments to page views as well, but really it is the balance of comments, page views and favorites that gives me the clearest picture of what is going on with my comic. My artwork isn't the best, so that I think hurts me. I don't think many people know about my strip, that hurts too. But I think the thing that holds George the Dragon back so much is the fact that I only update once a week. My comics average about 3-4 comments each. Page views though fluctuate greatly. When I update I get page views in the upper 100s even up to 210. This tends to last a day or two after each update. The entire rest of the week, however, the page view average is around 30 per day. *sigh*

If only there was more time to draw new comics. (And it only my computer was acting up making the drawing of each individual comic take forever :) )

I think word of mouth helps greatly. This is a very good community here, with a lot of different conversations and such. Once word gets out, comics tend to flourish. :)

The comments are helpful, and the fact that people come back to comment again (or read your comments back) are important. I like that I have a smaller fan base (a group of friends, if you will), because if I was like one of the top 5 or 10 comics on the site and was pulling in 50+ comments, I would still want to respond to them all.

This smaller group of people feels closer, more friendly, and less like a mass of people just trying to comment for the sake of commenting. I can actually read everyone's feedback and respond to it, and that's important to me - because I try to do the same for them.

However, being in the top 500 does make me feel pretty good about myself. And being in the top 100 would make me feel even better than that, but I'm not ready to be there yet. Right now, I'm digging where I am and I'll hopefully grow from there.

ok... well... my last update was on monday... not last monday, the monday BEFORE that... so that means I didn't update for 11 days!!! and what's more... my rating went up to the HIGHEST I'VE EVER SEEN IT!!! (well actually it may have been a bit higher but I was at about 400 overall when I last updated... and during the period of no-update it went up O.o)

#171 in Comic Book/Story #251 Overall

dude like... I think it's because I finally got around to making my signature, which I did wednesday before last and I'm posting more in the forums XD oh yeha, and using a bit of the signature for a new thumbnail... yeah, the banners/advertisements are more appealing now.

JustNoPoint
In terms of preference
Favorites > Comments > Views

I have no idea how many favourites Shades has, since I haven't downloaded the Alerter (I have too many pieces of software going wrong on my PC already to want to add any more!)

For me, then, it boils down to Comments and Views, and I value them both equally. Since we don't have stats for Unique Visitors, Views are the only measure we have for how many people are actually reading, and it is nice to know that somebody out there is!

On the other hand the importance that DD puts on Comments is great. I also run Shades at my own website but here at DD I've felt a real sense of "community" that doesn't seem to exist elsewhere.

Chimera is #217 in Comic Book/Story and #313 Overall ATM.
(So, the number of hits you have affects your rank? I figured it would be the number of people that faved your comic, but I noticed that my rank is always moving up and down while there isn't a huge change in the faves.)

MAG-ISA is now at:

#177 in Comic Book/Story #251 Overall

The highest it has ever been... thank you all!!!

#11 in Comic Strip #29 Overall

For me its Views>Comments>favorites.

I have no idea how to track where they come from, but I doubt that's the case.