On 01/06/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 01/06/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I note it seems to be using WikiCharts and assuming that pageviews = search terms. Any ideas on how representative that's going to be, anyone?
Unknown, but likely hardly at all representative of "things people looked up on en: Wikipedia" or "followed a link to that was intended to be en: Wikipedia." I find it hard to believe [[wiki]] is really that popular a subject - surmises on what's going on include disappointed Googlers on sex terms (who end up on a page of text with a link to a Wikipedian's penis) or people typing "wiki" or "wikipedia" into their search bar to get to the site.
When press etc ask about this (someone from the Economist did) I caution them that it's an accurate count of page hits, but not necessarily of "popularity" in any useful sense.
I'm not sure how we would measure that. Ideas?
- d.