How Reliable are Medium’s Stats?

Summary

The author of a Medium blog expresses skepticism about the reliability of Medium's statistics after noticing discrepancies in view and read time metrics for their personal stories and newly started publication.

Abstract

The author, who has been less active on Medium, observes a significant drop in their personal stats but is surprised to find their new publication already receiving views and substantial read times despite minimal promotion. Upon investigation, the author finds a mismatch between the high read times reported for the publication and the lower engagement metrics on their individual stories. They question whether the read times are inflated or if the read time statistics are underreported, given that even stories with a 100% read ratio show member reading times that are less than expected based on the length of the content. The author, who previously trusted Medium's stats as they are tied to earnings, now feels a loss of confidence in the accuracy of these metrics and considers heeding advice to focus on writing rather than obsessing over the stats.

Opinions

The author doubts the accuracy of Medium's statistics, particularly the read time metrics.
There is a belief that the stats page is crucial since it directly relates to how writers are paid on Medium.
The author is motivated by recent changes to the Partner Program and plans to grow their publication into a supportive community.
The author is skeptical about the high read times reported for the publication, considering the low activity and lack of promotion.
There is confusion over the discrepancy between the publication's stats and personal stats, with a suspicion that read ratios might be inflated or read times are underreported.
The author acknowledges a lack of expertise in statistics and is open to the possibility of having misunderstood the data.
Despite the doubts, the author is considering moving forward without focusing heavily on the statistics, following the advice of others to prioritize writing.

My recent experiences suggest not very…

I’ve always taken Medium’s stats page to be accurate — after all, it’s how they pay us. But lately, I’m starting to have some doubts.

I haven’t been very active on Medium lately. As always, when that happens, my stats plummet — I don’t have the followers to keep my numbers ticking along while I take time away from the screen.

Not yet, anyway. The plan is to change that, and the recent changes to the Partner Program have helped with motivation.

Part of my strategy is to start my own publication. Hopefully, it can grow to become another of Medium’s wonderful little communities of writers, all supporting each other. But right now, it’s in its infancy.

And I mean infancy. So far there’s just me — I’ve done nothing to promote it, yet. I’ve just been playing around with the design, adding some of my old homeless stories that deserved somewhere to live, so that my new ‘pub’ wasn’t empty.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered I could check the stats specifically for the publication, and it was already getting views!

Now I need to put this in context: when I’m not active on here, my daily views often drop into the single digits. I rarely bother to check — there’s little chance of a surprise with no new material.

But on Monday alone the publication had almost 100 visitors, and over the weekend it had amassed two hours worth of read time!

Which stories had attracted the attention? Remember, at the moment they’re all mine, so I ventured over to check my personal stats.

My daily views were all in the mid teens, while read times never hit double figures. Now, for publications, the stats say ‘minutes read’ as opposed to ‘member reading time’, so could that explain the discrepancy?

For the most part, all my views were internal and apparently from members (e.g. stories with one view, 30 sec member reading times). But I’ve added an older story that seems to rank well on Google as it often gets external views, so I checked to see if that could be the culprit.

Ten views over the weekend. Had those ten people spent two hours on a six minute read? I’m doubting it.

Then I looked more closely at some of my figures. Yesterday there was a story, a six minute read, that had two views, two reads (100% read ratio — yay!). Except the members reading time stat read 2min.

If just one of those readers were a member, by Medium’s own definition, they should have spent at least 6 minutes! Are my read ratios inflated, or are my read times a third or less of what they should be?

I’m not a stats person, I just enjoy knowing how my stories are doing, so it’s very possible that I’ve missed something obvious (I’m sure someone will let me know if I have). But for now, I’ve definitely lost faith in them.

There are plenty of articles advising us not to check the stats and just write. For me, I think it’s time I took that advice.