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Stats


Snowballs




This shows the number of Snowballs on your blog - a Snowball is a collection of posts that WPS has created - originating from a seed post (a post that you or an autoblogging tool have made). Every time you make a post - WPS will create a snowball around it - the most recent one being displayed in the 'Latest Snowball Graph'.

Posts




This shows the total number of posts that make up all your Snowballs, including ones that you have made (seed post) and every one that's been generated as a result. This number will change when either you make a new post, or a visitor lands on a post causing more to be generated.

This number refreshes on each load of the dashboard.

Links




This shows the total number of links that have been generated by WPS. All these links are pointing to different posts. Whenever WPS makes a post (if you've set up links in the settings) WPS will queue a random number of links to that will go live over time. The links will only show on the dashboard when they've been submitted - so you may not see this number increase as soon as a post is made. This number refreshes on each load of the dashboard.


Clicks




This number shows how many clicks you've had that lead to a monetization source. WPS uses JS and a meta refresh to track a click and logs it. All outbound links leading to a monetization source (if you've set it up) will be tracked and displayed here. This number refreshes on each load of the dashboard.

It's important to note that this will not pick up any clicks on ads that aren't part of WPS - so if you've got any other banners etc on the site, WPS cannot track these.


Latest Snowball Graph


Overview


This shows your most recent snowball, the 'seed post' is the post that you (or a tool) made. The graph shows where each post is linking to - the numbers displayed are the post ID of each post.

You can click and drag a post to make it easier to view. You can also double-click on a post to view it - note that doing so will cause more posts to be made if it's an active growth point. (red arrow leading to it)

This is only your most recent Snowball, so the seed post will be the most recent post published (by you or another tool)

Info Messages


If WPS can't generate a graph of the Snowball, it'll display a message in it's place. Here's the messages you may see and what the cause is.

  1. WPSB hasn't found any "Level 0" posts on your blog. As WPSB is active, try making a post now to start a new snowball.
    This means that WP Snowball hasn't found a post that it can use to start a Snowball. This will show up when you first install WP Snowball, if you make a post - it will pick it up and display the new snowball.
  2. WPSB hasn't found any "Level 0" posts on your blog. As WPSB is not currently active, new posts will not start snowballs.
    This means that you need to activate WP Snowball before it can pick up new posts. If you go into the settings and set it up, WP Snowball can then pick up your posts.
  3. The latest snowball only has 1 post in it so far. Visit the post now to trigger some posts.
    This means that the only post in the snowball is your source post. If you visit the post by clicking the link, this will trigger new posts to be made and show in the dashboard.
  4. The latest snowball only has 1 post in it so far. This post is not queued for new posts (maybe because it tried and failed already). Either make a new post, or click the "Requeue" link on the post's debugging box.
    Sometimes, when WPSB fails to get content, this message will display. You can solve by either making a new post (to start a new Snowball) or clicking the link to the post, when you're on the page - you will see an option 'requeue post' in the debugging box, click this and it'll queue the post again to start the Snowball.
  5. The latest snowball only has 1 post in it so far. WPSB is not currently active, so no snowballs can be made for this post.
    This means that WPSB has registered that you've made a post - but cannot make additional content as you've not set it up in the settings. Head over to the settings tab and fill in the details, then when you save it should solve the problem.

Seed Post




The seed post is the most important post, because without it nothing would be posted. A seed post (or level 0 post) is any post that you (or another tool) publishes. WPSB then picks this up, labels it as a seed post and makes a Snowball from it.

You can create a seed post at any point by publishing a post like you would normally in Wordpress. This will then start a Snowball (if WPSB is on).

Each arrow that comes from a post means that it's got that many 'styles' in it linking to another post.

Red arrows





A red arrow means that the post that it's pointing to is an active growth point. This means that whenever a visitor lands on that page (ID 2663 in the picture) it will trigger the next level of posts. (the numbers displayed are post ID's)

A post will have a red line leading to it (meaning it's an active growth point) unless:

Blue arrows




A blue arrow means that the post that it's pointing to has already triggered the next level of posts. The exception to this is when the Snowball has reached it's max level, the last one will show a blue line (meaning no more growth there).

A red line will change to a blue one whenever the post that it's pointing to triggers another level. You can do this yourself by double clicking on the post ID a red line is pointing to.

Green Arrows




You can turn this on or off in the settings ('link back to seed' checkbox).

When the max level is reached, rather than linking to the next level of posts (like it does for the previous levels) - posts that are the max level will link back to the seed post, this will display in the graph as a green arrow. If this is turned off the max level post won't contain any links.

A post will only link back to the seed post if:

Having the posts link back to the main post at the max level is a huge advantage, creating link wheels that increase both relevancy and pagerank. It also increases your site's crawlability by the search engines. In the picture above the max levels is set to 5.

So a green line shows that the portion of that snowball has reached it's max level and will not grow any more.

Note: Having this setting on can cause errors in displaying the Snowball in the graph, especially with bigger snowballs. With this setting on you may find that the Graph of your recent snowball turns into a line between two corners. If this happens - WPSB is still functioning but it's having problems in displaying it. (Bug noted for future update)


Post Frequency Chart




This displays your post activity per day for the last 6 months. It's relative to each blog's posting frequency. The more posts made on a day, the darker green it'll display. This means that dark green on one blog may be 5 posts, but on another it could be 50.

You'll see the chart is displayed with weeks being columns, and each day marked as a day of the week (ie 'M' = Monday).

It will display a darker and darker green the more posts made on a day, you can hover over a day to see how many posts were actually made.

This data comes from the Wordpress database which logs when a post was published.

You can use this to see if the blog's posting frequency is regular or not.

Todays posts arn't displayed - so it shows 6 months back from (and including) yesterday.

 

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