Google+ Introduces View Counts For Personal Profiles

Yonatan Zunger, Chief Architect of Google+, shed some light on a new feature many have been noticing showing up on their Google+ profiles. If you haven’t seen it yet, on your Google+ personal profile you will now notice a view count underneath your name and location.

In a post made on Google+, Zunger states he’s been getting asked about the new view count number. Zunger put together a list of the questions he’s been getting so everyone can access all the key answers in one place. They are as follows:

What does this number count? This is total views on your profile, your posts, your photos, and your videos.

What constitutes a “view?” When someone view your profile page, it counts as a view. For photos and other media, a view is counted when a piece of media you posted is served up on another person’s screen. When someone views your hovercard, that does not count as a view.

Is this related to +1’s, reshares, etc.? Only in the sense that if someone +1’d your post they would have had to view it first.

If someone reshares my post, does that count? Yes, since it results in your post being seen. It also counts as a view if someone sees your post through an “Alice +1’ed this,” through a post embedded on a website, or any other way that someone comes across your content.

I don’t want to show this on my profile! You can hide this by going to your settings page. Go to plus.google.com/settings and look for “Show how many times your profile and content have been viewed.”

This seems strange: Some people seem to have a lot more views relative to their number of followers than others. Is something broken? Not at all. Some people have a lot of followers but don’t engage with them well, while other people engage amazingly with a smaller group.

I want to find out more. Check out the Help Center article at http://goo.gl/8BjroH.

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