Summary

The web content explains the difference between "Views" and "Reads" on Medium, emphasizing the importance of scrolling to the bottom of an article for a read to be counted.

Abstract

The article "Views vs. Reads on Medium" clarifies the distinction between the two metrics in a writer's Medium stats. Views represent the number of visitors who click on a story, while Reads indicate an estimate of how many viewers have read the entire story. The author notes that a common confusion arises from a pop-up message prompting readers to continue reading an article, which seems to occur predominantly on mobile devices. Through personal experimentation, the author discovers that scrolling to the very bottom of the page is necessary for a read to be registered, which may not be intuitive for all users. The article suggests that this information is not widely known, potentially leading to inflated view counts and lower read percentages, which does not necessarily reflect the quality or reception of the content. The author encourages readers to scroll to the bottom of articles to ensure accurate tracking of reads and to support writers they follow. Additionally, the article advises followers to clap for posts they enjoy, hinting at the possibility that claps might influence the visibility of content on the platform.

Opinions

The author believes that the difference between Views and Reads on Medium can be confusing for writers and readers alike.
There is a suggestion that the pop-up message to continue reading is an imperfect feature, as it may appear even after a reader has finished an article.
The author implies that the current system for tracking reads may not accurately reflect actual reader engagement, as it requires a specific action (scrolling to the bottom) that may not be obvious to all users.
The article expresses that readers should be made aware of the need to scroll to the bottom to have their read count, which could be beneficial for writers' stats and morale.
The author speculates that clapping (up to 50 times) might positively affect an article's visibility or algorithmic promotion, although this is not confirmed.

Views vs. Reads on Medium

Understanding what counts in your stats

*Before reading, please scroll all the way down to the bottom of this page in order for it to be counted as a “read.” Thanks!

If you’ve written on Medium for any length of time, you’ve noticed the categories in your stats include: Views, Reads, and Fans. You may be asking yourself,

What’s the difference between views and reads?

On Medium’s own Help page, it states:

Views are the number of visitors who clicked on a story’s page, while Reads tells you how many viewers have read the entire story (an estimate).

This may seem easy enough to understand, but keep reading.

No One Likes Me! 😢

This delineation then begs the question:

Why is my percentage of reads so low when the views are much higher? Does this mean people don’t like what they see?

Not necessarily.

There have been many articles, stories and poems that I have read on this platform. After reading, I may clap and/or comment, or if I didn’t like it, neither one. No matter what my response, I exit the article and sometimes I get a message that pops up prompting, “Continue reading [name of article]” This message, by the way, only seems to appear when using my phone. I haven’t been receiving the message on my Chromebook.

At first, I was confused by this because I had just spent several minutes, in some cases, reading the post in its entirety. So, I usually would ignore the pop-up message; however, when it continued to happen, I got a bit annoyed. I would think,

I just read the whole thing! Why are they asking if I want to continue reading?

So, I decided to conduct an experiment.

Scroll, Reader, Scroll!

The next time I read an article, I scrolled all the way to the bottom of the page, past the end of the article where they list recommendations for other posts that you may want to read. Then, I exited the article; the message did not pop up. Whenever I read a post and scroll down to the point that I cannot scroll any further, and then exit the post, the above message does not appear.

This may be common knowledge to some, but I believe that many people — especially those who are new to Medium — are not aware of this. I am sure that there are a great many people who are reading articles, and even clapping and commenting; yet, if they do not scroll to the bottom of the page, their “reads” do not count as such. In these cases, they are only counted as “views.”

Of course, there are also people (myself included) who view an article, skim it, and realize it’s not for them or it isn’t what they expected. They did not actually read the entire post and so the designation of “view,” in this case, is accurate.

Conclusion

If you want the individuals that you follow to get credit for your “reads” of their posts, make sure to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page. You might also want to tell your own followers about this distinction. Make sure you also clap, as many as 50 times, for any post that you enjoyed (including this one!). I’m not sure if claps affect any algorithms to help boost your post, but they can’t hurt.

Thanks for reading! If you derived some benefit from this post, please clap and comment. I also hope you’ll follow me to read other posts whenever they’re published.

You may also like to check out my own journey to my first 100 followers:

100 Followers in Just Over a Month

The Challenge

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