Picture Hit Tracking

[Frank]

I'm sure I mentioned this information before but just in case here's a reminder:

- When a photographer uploads a picture the IP address is recorded with the picture

- Every time someone looks at a picture their IP address is recorded along with the the time


What's the significance of these two bits of information?

I can check to see if there are excessive hits on any given picture from a specific IP address, including if the specific IP address is the same as the upload IP address


What does all this mean?

I can see if a photographer or anyone else for that matter is artificially bumping up the hit count of any picture. I understand that a photographer will check their picture from time to time to check the picture but there's checking the picture then there's doing the dog on it.


What will I, as site admin, do about this?

I can and will make an adjustment to the picture hit count that will better reflect the actual hits of that picture if I feel there is abuse.


Please play fair


Regards,

Frank.

[Frank]

Oh and before anyone says anything, I only use you're IP address for picture hit tracking, I won't be ordering any Viagra with your details or anything like that.

[thurian]

hahahahaha, I figured you'd cop that alright!

[SteveRendle]

Hi Frank/All

I believe on Airliners.net (sorry will now go and wash my mouth ) that the IP address only registers 1 hit, so it is impossible to inflate your hit count from your PC

Would it be worth introducing the software to combat this or do you believe it to be a very isolated incident.

Regards

Steve

[Frank]

Hi Steve,

To inflate your hit count on the website is not as straightforward as simply hitting the refresh / reload button, I don't have the IP based system that Airliners.net has although I do record IP addresses with every picture hit, I also record the time & date of every hit.

Take for example one of the helicopter pictures you took at Portsmouth recently, it got massive hits because you posted links on the UKAR and Key Publishing forums, and you can see the pages the picture was linked to from by clicking here:

http://www.worldairpics.com/link_list.php?id=1037889

This page is publicly available to all website users, it is displayed under each picture. If the picture hit comes from within IrishAirPics.com / WorldAirPics.com then the link is not shown but is still recorded. The IP & time / date are also recorded but only links from an external website are shown.

I obviously have access to all the information that is recorded and if a picture that would not appear to be newsworthy, eye catching or linked to from external websites but has a large amount of hits then I can look into it a bit more.

The problem with IP tracking is that if, for example, like in my house you have a broadband router and multiple computers you only get 1 hit per household as the IP address is assigned to the router and not the PC... if I look at a picture and I send my wife the link to look at on her computer the picture gets only 1 hit, whereas the system I have in place now gives 2 hits.

It's only a small thing but seeing as hit count abuse isn't that widespread right now I'm happy to stick with things as they are for now.


Regards,

Frank.

[corkspotter]

Didn't know you could do that Frank!

It's cool to see other people putting up links to your photo's in other forums such as Pprune and stuff!! On the other hand i've been caught for putting up links in other forums!!! Thats not cheating though, thats just making your photo's available to the spotters that have been unable to see the aircraft in question, nothing to do with getting extra hits!!!! 

Regards,

Paul

[Tony Kearns]

No worries Frank, there are NO naughty people on Irish Air Pics, I  I  I   t-h-i-n-k
Tony K

[Frank]

Paul,

There is no ban or prohibition on you posting links to your own pictures on any website, forum or email list, in fact I actively encourage it.

It gets your picture and name out there, it also brings people to IrishAirPics.com / WorldAirPics.com where they can browse around the website looking at more of your pictures or other peoples pictures.

A direct link to your picture is displayed on the photo page, feel free to send the link around, there is a link displayed above your picture and more links are available by clicking on the link icon (chain link icon).

Now the trick here now is not to spam people, for example, I wouldn't send an email to the mailing lists with when every one of your pictures are added to the site unless the picture is newsworthy or some one was asking about, basically play it smart, don't put people off looking at your pictures.

Tony, everyone on the website is an angel, I'm just letting them know I'm watching!


Regards,

Frank.

[Stanly]

Frank.
Does that make you an Archangel...........

[Frank]

I dunno about me being an Archangel, I have been called an Anti-Christ more than a few times though!

[Frank]

Just to give you an update in the picture hit tracking situation:

Some pictures were clocking up lots of hits in quite a short period of time so I looked into the picture stats and I discovered 2 things:

1 - Some people were bumping up their hits

2 - Lots of hits were being generated on some pictures by search engine indexing bots

So, to prevent against attempted bumping up of the picture hit counts and to ensure that only a "real person" generated the hits I've linked the picture hit count to the IP address of the person visiting the website and will filter out hits generated by bots.

I know I said earlier in this thread that I wasn't too keen on introducing this kind of hit tracking but in order to be fair to every photographer I felt that I had no other choice but to introduce this system.

The benefit of this is that you will now have a more accurate hit count and you will (in a future upgrade) be able to generate more comprehensive picture statistics.


Regards,

Frank.