Wikipedia referrals should now be visible to partners

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Alex Stinson

1 Mar 2016 1 Mar '16

11:01 a.m.

Hi all, Since the HTTP to HTTPS change last summer, a number of Wikipedia Library and GLAM partners have reported a drop in traffic reported as "referrals" from Wikipedia, where many of these referrals are being reported as organic referrals, effectively creating "dark traffic". Dario Taraborelli from the research team, worked with Wikimedia Ops to find a solution to this problem. He and I are also working with a number of movement partners to understand this effect, and better assess how Wikipedia references provide referrals to frequently cited websites (see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikimedia_referrer_policy and https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T87276 ). Last Tuesday (Feb 23) the ops team turned on a new "meta referrer tag" so that sites getting traffic via clicks from Wikimedia pages may see these referrals in analytics reports. Several publishers have of an increase in correctly labeled Wikimedia traffic. Since this effect has been in place for about a week: you may want to let your partners at cultural heritage institutions know about this change. Historically, referrals have been a indicator of partnership success and a persuasive tool for organizations to participate, and the HTTPS change may have obscured this. Moreover, if your GLAM partners would be interested in supporting by sharing referral traffic: we will be collecting partner analytics data from January 1 to March 30 in about a month. Let me know if you think your GLAM partner would like to participate. Cheers, Alex Stinson

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Jason J. Evans

1 Mar 1 Mar

11:45 a.m.

New subject: [cultural-partners] Wikipedia referrals should now be visible to partners

Excellent, Thanks for sharing the news. A quick look at Google Analytics shows a sharp rise in Referrals from Wikipedia since last week. Also, I am happy to share analytics from the National Library of Wales. Best Jason On Tuesday, March 1, 2016 16:01 GMT, Alex Stinson <astinson(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

sharing referral traffic: we will be collecting partner analytics data from January 1 to March 30 in about a month. Let me know if you think your GLAM partner would like to participate. Cheers, Alex Stinson

-- Jason Evans Wicipediwr Preswyl / Wikipedian in Residence Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / National Library of Wales jason.evans(a)llgc.org.uk Ffon/Tel: +44 (0)1970 632405

Alex Stinson

11:52 a.m.

New subject: [cultural-partners] Wikipedia referrals should now be visible to partners

Brilliant! Thanks Jason glad to confirm the impact, hope it helps with your internal discussions. I will add you to our list of people to collect from, and will send you the email we sent out to our research partners. Cheers, Alex Stinson On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 11:45 AM, Jason J. Evans <jason.evans(a)llgc.org.uk> wrote:

...

organic

referrals, effectively creating "dark traffic". Dario Taraborelli from the research team, worked with Wikimedia Ops to

find

a solution to this problem. He and I are also working with a number of movement partners to understand this effect, and better assess how Wikipedia references provide referrals to frequently cited websites (see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikimedia_referrer_policy

and

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T87276 ). Last Tuesday (Feb 23) the ops team turned on a new "meta referrer tag" so that sites getting traffic via clicks from Wikimedia pages may see these referrals in analytics reports. Several publishers have of an increase in correctly labeled Wikimedia traffic. Since this effect has been in place for about a week: you may want to let your partners at cultural heritage institutions know about this change. Historically, referrals have been a indicator of partnership success and

persuasive tool for organizations to participate, and the HTTPS change

may

have obscured this. Moreover, if your GLAM partners would be interested in supporting by

sharing referral traffic: we will be collecting partner analytics data

from

January 1 to March 30 in about a month. Let me know if you think your

GLAM

partner would like to participate. Cheers, Alex Stinson

-- Jason Evans Wicipediwr Preswyl / Wikipedian in Residence Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / National Library of Wales jason.evans(a)llgc.org.uk Ffon/Tel: +44 (0)1970 632405 _______________________________________________ Cultural-Partners mailing list Cultural-Partners(a)wikimedia.ch https://intern.wikimedia.ch/lists/listinfo/cultural-partners Please treat emails sent to this list as confidential.Ask senders for permission before forwarding emails off-list.

Lane Rasberry

2:06 p.m.

New subject: [cultural-partners] Wikipedia referrals should now be visible to partners

Hello, I have had this request from a lot of partner organizations (~30). Although the request is common, and organizations say they want the data, I am not sure that if they had the data they would actually use it or know how to interpret it. Just the same - if I could make a labor request of WMF staff, it would be for staff to create layman documentation on what it means to track incoming traffic from Wikipedia. My expectation is that more organizations would get more satisfaction from knowing that it is possible to track incoming traffic, even if they decided not to do this. Right now I mostly say, "It is difficult, I do not know, your IT department can tell you..." Instead, I wish I could say, "Here is the layman guide. It links to more detailed information." Part of serving movement partners is offering them possibilities and giving them instructions. There is not always capacity to take advantage of options, but often having layman outreach materials opens doors and has value beyond assisting people in performing an action. If there is someone clever and interested at the intersection of movement partner management and analytics, here is what I would request - 1. Layman guide presuming no technical understanding 2. making a case for tracking inbound traffic to their site through citations (not emphasizing external links) 3. giving a timeless overview on how to do this 4. linking to detailed more up-to-date instructions I confirm that this would be useful. Getting organizations to actually collect and reflect on this data is a more complicated issue and will take time. I would be interested to read reports of any organization which does this. yours, On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 11:52 AM, Alex Stinson <astinson(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

Hi all, Since the HTTP to HTTPS change last summer, a number of Wikipedia

Library

and GLAM partners have reported a drop in traffic reported as

"referrals"

from Wikipedia, where many of these referrals are being reported as

organic

referrals, effectively creating "dark traffic". Dario Taraborelli from the research team, worked with Wikimedia Ops to

find

and

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T87276 ). Last Tuesday (Feb 23) the ops team turned on a new "meta referrer tag"

that sites getting traffic via clicks from Wikimedia pages may see these referrals in analytics reports. Several publishers have of an increase

correctly labeled Wikimedia traffic. Since this effect has been in place for about a week: you may want to

let

your partners at cultural heritage institutions know about this change. Historically, referrals have been a indicator of partnership success

and a

persuasive tool for organizations to participate, and the HTTPS change

may

have obscured this. Moreover, if your GLAM partners would be interested in supporting by

sharing referral traffic: we will be collecting partner analytics data

from

January 1 to March 30 in about a month. Let me know if you think your

GLAM

partner would like to participate. Cheers, Alex Stinson

_______________________________________________ Cultural-Partners mailing list Cultural-Partners(a)wikimedia.ch https://intern.wikimedia.ch/lists/listinfo/cultural-partners Please treat emails sent to this list as confidential.Ask senders for permission before forwarding emails off-list.

-- Lane Rasberry user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia 206.801.0814 lane(a)bluerasberry.com

Alex Stinson

3:05 p.m.

New subject: [cultural-partners] Wikipedia referrals should now be visible to partners

Hey Lane, Dario and I are going to spend some time, in our research around Dark traffic, to analyze what is happening in terms of "referrals" for the partner organizations that participate. Once that is done, we plan on creating several types of communications, including a detailed report and a blog post which talks about what has changed related to the dark traffic AND analyzes the referrals in terms of "How much is Wikipedia referring to reliable sources more generally? And what value does that referral traffic provide for those organizations?" I will keep your use case in mind when we work on that. However, I think what you are asking for might be better met by a learning pattern: I highly recommend starting one, so all of the volunteers with experience helping organizations track this data, can share there experiences and recommendations. Here is the instructions for doing that that: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_patterns . I will definitely contribute part of my experience there as well. Also, you mention trying to track citations vs. external links: as far as I am aware, there is no clear technical way to distinguish between citations and external links in outgoing traffic. Cheers, Alex On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 2:06 PM, Lane Rasberry <lane(a)bluerasberry.com> wrote:

...

Hi all, Since the HTTP to HTTPS change last summer, a number of Wikipedia

Library

and GLAM partners have reported a drop in traffic reported as

"referrals"

from Wikipedia, where many of these referrals are being reported as

organic

referrals, effectively creating "dark traffic". Dario Taraborelli from the research team, worked with Wikimedia Ops to

find

(see

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikimedia_referrer_policy and > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T87276 ).

> Last Tuesday (Feb 23) the ops team turned on a new "meta referrer tag" so

that sites getting traffic via clicks from Wikimedia pages may see

these

referrals in analytics reports. Several publishers have of an increase

in > correctly labeled Wikimedia traffic.

> Since this effect has been in place for about a week: you may want to let

your partners at cultural heritage institutions know about this change. Historically, referrals have been a indicator of partnership success

and a

persuasive tool for organizations to participate, and the HTTPS change

may > have obscured this.

> Moreover, if your GLAM partners would be interested in supporting by

sharing referral traffic: we will be collecting partner analytics data

from

January 1 to March 30 in about a month. Let me know if you think your

GLAM > partner would like to participate.

> Cheers,

> Alex Stinson -- Jason Evans Wicipediwr Preswyl / Wikipedian in Residence Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / National Library of Wales jason.evans(a)llgc.org.uk Ffon/Tel: +44 (0)1970 632405 _______________________________________________ Cultural-Partners mailing list Cultural-Partners(a)wikimedia.ch https://intern.wikimedia.ch/lists/listinfo/cultural-partners Please treat emails sent to this list as confidential.Ask senders for permission before forwarding emails off-list.

-- Lane Rasberry user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia 206.801.0814 lane(a)bluerasberry.com _______________________________________________ Cultural-Partners mailing list Cultural-Partners(a)wikimedia.ch https://intern.wikimedia.ch/lists/listinfo/cultural-partners Please treat emails sent to this list as confidential.Ask senders for permission before forwarding emails off-list.

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Alex Stinson
Jason J. Evans
Lane Rasberry