Who is Top Author?
Picture this situation: you’re an author on a popular blog that’s published by several users; you’re wondering which author is getting the most views… Well now you can find out.
Today we’re introducing a new panel to your stats page, Top Authors.
Here’s how it works: all the posts that were visited during the day are counted up, divided by who wrote them. The author with the most visits across all his or her posts of the day, gets the top spot. Interestingly, the top spot is not about who wrote the most posts, it’s about which author wrote the posts that got the most visits.
To see each author’s posts, you can click the little plus icon to expand and reveal just what stories earned them their points of the day. Pictured above, the wonderful Jane Wells had just posted about the exciting new WordPress 3.1 features. Because that was a popular post, it earned her the top spot.
At this blog here, we don’t actively compete for the top spot (or do we!?), but other blogs might find these statistics mighty fascinating.
Because we liked the grouping feature so much, we also added it to your referrers box, which now bundles up links from the same domain.
The new panel is available for all blogs on WordPress.com. It will appear automatically if you have two or more authors with traffic on their posts. In the not-so-distant future, “Top Authors” along with the new look for stats, will be available for self-hosted blogs running the Stats plugin.
November 22nd, 2010 at 6:26 pm
yess
November 22nd, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Good idea!!!
November 22nd, 2010 at 6:29 pm
That’s gonna be me, all over. No doubt. Well..enjoy my fame.
November 22nd, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Ooooh, great addition, WordPress! Thanks a lot!
November 22nd, 2010 at 6:42 pm
This is excellent. Well done again WordPress team.
November 22nd, 2010 at 6:50 pm
“Top Author?”
This is wonderful! It will be particularly useful because of the way it has been implemented (e.g., “…wrote the most posts, it’s about which author wrote the posts that got the most visits). WordPress continues to be the very best blogging tool out there!
November 22nd, 2010 at 6:54 pm
This is wonderful news!
But, it’s seems like a new open door to competition.
November 22nd, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Top Author! W00t!
November 22nd, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Wait is it pageviews or word count?
November 22nd, 2010 at 6:57 pm
awesome! why not also make a widget of a similar format?
November 22nd, 2010 at 7:01 pm
That’s not a bad idea. For now, though, it’ll remain within the confines of your stats page!
November 22nd, 2010 at 7:05 pm
Way to go Jane!
> It will appear automatically if you have two or more authors with traffic on their posts.
> In the not-so-distant future, “Top Authors” along with the new look for stats, will be available for self-hosted blogs running the Stats plugin.
Yes!
November 22nd, 2010 at 7:05 pm
Not bad WP! Not bad at all!
November 22nd, 2010 at 7:06 pm
Good idea!
great stuff team WordPress
November 22nd, 2010 at 7:08 pm
How come I get it when I am the only one posting on my blog?
November 22nd, 2010 at 7:17 pm
That’s a good question! We’ll debug this and post a fix soon.
November 22nd, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Thanks very much for the report. We deployed a fix just a minute ago.
November 22nd, 2010 at 7:20 pm
The author with the most visits across all his or her posts of the day, gets the top spot?
This has almost nothing to do with the author. Mostly this number depends on the subject.
I would select “Top author” by the highest number of subscriptions!
November 22nd, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Great Idea, but it will still be the person who gets the most traffic! As for myself, I’m thinking I had a very good day when I have 20 hits/day,
and that’s with no one commenting! It’s all a matter of what really concerns you – the numbers or the quality!
Thanks for doing this, however! ~Denise
November 22nd, 2010 at 7:46 pm
Jane wins the game!
November 22nd, 2010 at 8:20 pm
Great idea. But I suppose Jane will always win
November 22nd, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Love this idea, always great way to spread great blogs
November 22nd, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Once again, y’all are amazing…
November 22nd, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Great idea. But it’s turning to a competition…sort of.
November 22nd, 2010 at 9:13 pm
Honestly, this is not somethlng I really want to view. The top author when I’m down on the bottom! No thanks.
November 22nd, 2010 at 9:22 pm
Remember, the most visited posts aren’t necessarily the best written posts. In my experience, there’s a lot of luck involved in writing a popular post.
That said, you can hide the box if you really don’t want to see it. Click the little tab in the top right corner of your stats page, “screen options”, and uncheck the Top Authors checkbox.
November 22nd, 2010 at 9:13 pm
Love it. What a great idea. Again!
November 22nd, 2010 at 9:14 pm
I can not see who won yesterday, but today is Jane.
So the chords, Jane wins again I think:)
It is quite a good idea to blog so I think
November 22nd, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Hm… I was looking for this feature and thought I was a dummy ’cause I couldn’t find it. I guess I just assumed it was always a competition. So silly of me!
November 22nd, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Great feature, but unfortunately I seriously doubt I’ll be on that list ever
November 22nd, 2010 at 9:55 pm
“Because we liked the grouping feature so much, we also added it to your referrers box, which now bundles up links from the same domain.”
Here is a suggestion – the various flavors of Google (google.com, google.co.in, google.it, google.ca, google.es, google.ie, google.com.vn, google.ae, google.ps, etc, etc, etc)… could they be seen by the stats as the “same domain” for the purposes of the referrers box?
November 22nd, 2010 at 10:05 pm
We will be polishing the grouping of referrers. This type of grouping may be part of a future update.
November 22nd, 2010 at 10:38 pm
This is a really cool feature.
November 22nd, 2010 at 11:48 pm
What a good idea! Obviously helps to encourage more vicious blogging!
Beware people. I have a keyboard, and I’m not afraid to use it…
November 22nd, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Nice !
but, I don’t see this feature on my stats page. Why?
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:23 am
If your blog only has only one editor, you won’t see the new panel.
November 23rd, 2010 at 12:53 am
i Like it !! Good job
November 23rd, 2010 at 12:55 am
“Because we liked the grouping feature so much, we also added it to your referrers box, which now bundles up links from the same domain.”
That’s fantastic! Will you apply the grouping to historical data (i.e., weekly, monthly referrer stats)? Doing so would be helpful, showing totals from the search engines and major sites.
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:20 am
We are looking at expanding the polish done to the referrers box, but things are still in flux.
November 23rd, 2010 at 1:38 am
Love the grouping of the referrers, thanks! Top authors doesn’t count for me though since I run my blog solo, but good to know.
November 23rd, 2010 at 2:24 am
i wanna be on top!!! haha….
November 23rd, 2010 at 3:16 am
It’s nice to know how they got there but I’m not competing against anyone but myself when it comes to my blog. I have a passion for writing and for lots of subjects. If I get 300 hits a day I’m happy. I don’t link to anyone and I only comment on a few sites. I think if thousands were beating a path to my blog I’d be overwhelmed and feel pressured in some way. I just like blogging along at my pace. It seems like a good tool though.
November 23rd, 2010 at 3:34 am
I hope I’m the “Top Author,” especially because so far, I’m the Only Author
November 23rd, 2010 at 4:28 am
Commence jealousy factors
November 23rd, 2010 at 6:01 am
I’m really curious about knowing who gets the most views, great idea!
November 23rd, 2010 at 6:51 am
waw 9000 page view ? amazing
November 23rd, 2010 at 7:39 am
cool to publicise the best of the freshly presses or the WP posts, but doubt whether many writers beyond this will get exposure for their blogs this way… but good improvements to WP features anyway
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:13 am
Nice. I just need some more authors ;-(
November 23rd, 2010 at 10:50 am
Great idea! But is does not mean that the most visits make it the best read. It will give a boost to those in the top ten.
November 23rd, 2010 at 10:56 am
Hmm, International language blogs only. Interesting but not complete.
November 23rd, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Congratulations, Jane
November 23rd, 2010 at 1:38 pm
It is a great idea, though, sadly, I do not to be on the list anytime soon.
November 23rd, 2010 at 2:05 pm
I should be clear: this is not a global list. This is a list that is unique to every multi-user WordPress.com blog. In fact, unless your blog is a multi-user blog, you won’t see this panel at all.
November 23rd, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Great addition!!!
November 23rd, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Sounds cool!
I shall do my best to reach the top!
November 23rd, 2010 at 5:14 pm
That’s lovely ^^ I don’t have a multi-user blog though.
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:22 pm
I really like these new features, especially the grouping for the referrers, but is there any way to keep the grouping once you go from the overall stats page to the page looking at all the referrers?
Thanks
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:50 pm
Sounds fun. Would there be categories as well?? Like Platinum authors or Gold authors something like that.. Hope there’s a reward for being the top author.. other than the fame of course.. Like free themes or something..
November 23rd, 2010 at 10:09 pm
We have no current plans to expand on the top authors feature.
Let me also be absolutely clear, the list of top authors is unique for each individual multi user blog on WordPress.com. You hold your own competitions if you want to
November 23rd, 2010 at 10:29 pm
i have a long way to go with only 2 views, and one of those was my mom.
November 23rd, 2010 at 11:15 pm
Will there be an “all-time” tab added to this new panel? It’d be interesting to see how many hits we were getting before this panel was added. Is there a way to add it that it can look back through your site history and calculate it that way? Or is it due for an update at a later stage?
November 24th, 2010 at 10:26 am
Currently, we have no plans to add an “all-time” tab, but this may be something we’ll add in the future. It’s a good idea.
November 24th, 2010 at 12:17 am
Quite ingenious.
This could come in handy – and I’m sure it’s expanding the boundaries for other blogs as well.
November 24th, 2010 at 1:58 am
Big thumbs up … thanks for this wonderful new feature!
November 24th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Very nice, another channel for me to explore more blogs
November 24th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Another cool stats. Great.
November 24th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Oo, how exciting. Of course, as I am the only one who writes for my blog, I win all the time!
Yay me!
November 24th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Handy.
November 24th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
haha, interesting features. nice addition, thanks! ^^
November 24th, 2010 at 11:41 pm
hey this very cool u guys rock man
November 25th, 2010 at 12:27 am
Question: I am only a few months into blogging and I am learning via the school of hard knocks. How is it possible to be ” an author on a popular blog that’s published by several users?” Does this mean that others pick up your blog and republish?
November 25th, 2010 at 2:39 am
Someone’s over 9000 today…
November 25th, 2010 at 3:01 am
A great idea to cherish. Thanks a lot and regards to ALL wordpress bloggers. More power and may god bless us all.
November 25th, 2010 at 3:36 am
Sounds cool!!
November 25th, 2010 at 3:39 am
is there other “top” categories? Like the most active blogger (who post most posts). If not that would be a really good idea. Many other blogg sites has it.
November 25th, 2010 at 3:46 am
Why is it only ever a measure of quantity?
I understand that quantity is the easiest thing to be measured, but I sometimes wish that there would be a “top post” based on quality of writing.
It would be so nice if there was a WordPress service where critics or readers rate the best reads on a daily basis (even if it is from a randomly selected sample of blogs). I am always struggling to find a good story. This is why I love the blogs that show the most daily growth – there is often something good in them. While each person’s preference and taste differ, there is some universality which can compare one story to another. In a way that is similar to “most highly rated” on YouTube, WordPress should implement something that allows users to recommend the most well-written and interesting posts for the wandering reader. This is just a soft request – perhaps create a “recommend to a friend” system where the most shared posts are rated and recommended.
Thanks.
November 27th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
It is only a measure of quantity in the way that we are counting visits. It is not about who wrote the most posts. It is also an optional statistic. If you don’t like it, you can disable it using the little “Screen Options” tab in the top right corner.
As for measuring quality, that is difficult — we have to work with human metrics. Visits to a post is a human metric, comments to a post is a metric, and so is social shares and likes. These are all things we may explore in future statistics revisions.
November 25th, 2010 at 4:34 am
I wonder if there are any good chefs in the blog
November 25th, 2010 at 5:09 am
Kinda interesting. This will definitely make blogging more competitive, especially between poets on community blogs.
November 25th, 2010 at 5:21 am
It’s awkward. On my multi user blog, I’m the most prolific and also seem to be the “top author”.
November 25th, 2010 at 6:56 am
Well, thank you for making me feel even worse about my stats…
Now how about introducing a feature that helps out the little guy, eh?…
November 25th, 2010 at 11:52 am
<3 <3 <3
November 25th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
As much as WordPress has evolved over the past few years, I am excited to think how it will continue to improve in the future.
Thank you WordPress for being totally awesome.
November 25th, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Congratulations,Jane I hope for You More Success(Correction)
November 25th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
It isn’t a new feature at all. It’s about which author can get most comments and most posts. Contorversy seems to win:
Joean Asmussen or something:
“:Here’s how it works: all the posts that were visited during the day are counted up, divided by who wrote them. The author with the most visits across all his or her posts of the day, gets the top spot. Interestingly, the top spot is not about who wrote the most posts, it’s about which author wrote the posts that got the most visits.”
And ahhh?
November 27th, 2010 at 10:49 pm
You are free to ignore this statistic if you find it useless. You can hide it by unchecking the box in the little “Screen Options” tab in the top right corner.
Like “Top Posts” is meant to provide a means to see which content got the most attention on your blog, so “Top Authors” is meant to provide a means to see which author managed to — through effort or accident — gather the most visits. As a statistic, we find it will be valuable to some.
November 25th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
awesome! now all my contributors can see just how much attention they are getting. Wait a sec…i have no contributors…damn.
November 26th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
That is great !
November 26th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
i’m new to wordpress but TopAuthor is a fantastic welcome. wordpress has gotten me excited. i need my new editors pronto!
November 27th, 2010 at 2:15 am
Are there plans to add historical data as well? It would be neat to see the all time most popular authors.
November 27th, 2010 at 4:33 am
Very cool. This will definately be me on 50% of the blogs that I am on.
November 27th, 2010 at 7:57 am
Amazing idea! I bet there will be a lot of competiton with the authors!
November 27th, 2010 at 11:25 am
I like this idea! Just so everyone, no matter who each and everybody is, would be connected in a way….
November 27th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Nice idea…. keep the the updates coming!
November 27th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
i have two authors in my blog but can’t see this feature? isn’t it up yet?
November 27th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
The feature is up and running. It will only show up if you have more than one author that has written posts. If you have an author that hasn’t written any posts, the box will not show up.
November 28th, 2010 at 5:54 am
I am a brandy new blogger. I’ve annoyed my family via E-mail for years, now it’s the blogworld’s turn
I have a website, but my readers wanted to be able to leave comments, so a blog was the easiest route.
I am pleasantly surprised at the quality of WordPress, it is feature rich, and that is the FREE side.
You folks ROCK ! I get more stats and ease of thingys here than my webhost !
Keep up the great work !
November 28th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Thanks Joen. I look forward to the future human/qualitative stats.
November 28th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Why can’t people who run their blog solo (like me) see this new feature? Not that I’m desperate to see it, but still…
November 28th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Nice feature! Will be handy if I ever have any other writers come on board! Ha!
November 29th, 2010 at 10:30 am
What’s an average hits per good post per day? any bench marks ? I am averaging 100 hits, is this good or average?
November 29th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
This is interesting to me because I recently had one posting that I wrote that went through the roof one day. It wasn’t that I had written something so unusual, but that I had mentioned a site that was about how to find out about celebrities’ net worth. Daniel Tosh of Comedy Central mentioned that same site one day and sent my stats out the roof. I’ll be curious to keep an eye on how this rating system works. Thanks for the update.
November 30th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Great idea! I love it!
November 30th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
That really is a superb idea! I’ve only been with WordPress for a couple of months now after migrating from Windows Live Spaces, but so far I have enjoyed my experience with WordPress.
Great work team
December 1st, 2010 at 5:01 am
I think there will be benchmark, and i am sure its over 100 hits. You will be count as top author among all wordpress users bloggers.
December 1st, 2010 at 6:33 pm
The problem with traffic-driven ‘popularity’ ratings are that they can also be misleading. For instance, if an author writes something inflamatory that gets people in an uproar they’ll look very popular when, in fact, the opposite is true. (Unless your definition of ‘popular’ includes most-hated)
Anyways, go visit my blog!
December 1st, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Your new stats page is fantastic… top, top effort guys.
December 2nd, 2010 at 7:42 am
Just joined WordPress for less than a week. Definitely aiming to be in the Top Authors league in time to come.
The snow at the background is making me think that my eyesight is going from bad to worst
December 2nd, 2010 at 3:55 pm
It’s a good opportunity for everybody to be TOP AUTHOR of WORDPRESS
~~~~~ I am in ~~~~~