June 14, 2011
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Next up: More Views
We recently launched new sign-in options to help Xangans get more comments. Now we're working on a feature that should help Xangans get more pageviews: Related Posts.
We've actually been developing and testing this feature for a while on some of our own sites. We've gotten it to the point where it now drives on average about 5-7% of overall pageviews on those sites. And on some sites, the "Related Posts" module drives over 10% of overall pageviews!
The technology behind the "Related Posts" module is pretty straightforward, but it'll take some tweaking to get it to work across the millions of blogs on Xanga. While we do this tweaking, we just wanted to give you a quick heads up on how to get the most out of this upcoming feature...
The "Related Posts" module uses two key inputs:
- Tags* - the module uses tags to determine whether posts are related. If the module can't find any related posts based on tags, it simply shows a few of your recent posts.
On our sites, we've found that any post appearing in this module does get more clicks. But the posts that are truly related - based on tags - get a lot more clicks. So, if you haven't been tagging your posts, now is the time to get started! You don't have to think too hard about your tagging; just one or a few tags per post should be enough.
*Note: we have been exploring other approaches to finding relatedness - such as searching the text of each post to try to determine keywords automatically. But this simple tag-based approach is working so well that we wanted to get it out to everyone ASAP while we continue exploring other approaches.
- Pictures - some internet truthiness: people are more likely to click on pictures than text.
The "Related Posts" module takes advantage of this behavior by automatically grabbing a sample picture from each post to use in the module. Specifically, it grabs the first image inside each post (excluding non-content images like Xanga smileys) and turns it into a little thumbnail image inside the module. If your post has no images, it uses your profile picture. Even just the profile picture helps drive clicks, but a nice, unique image works much better.
So if you already use images in your posts, start putting your catchiest ones first. If you don't use images, you might want to consider adding at least one nice image to each post... or at the very least make sure you have a good profile pic!
We'll be rolling this new feature to all sites soon. For those who don't want it, we'll be sure to provide some way to hide it from view.
Let us know what you think!
P.S. two quick updates on other issues:
- Commenting bug - on our last post, a few folks mentioned a bug that has been eating comments, especially when it looks like yours is going to be the first comment. We found and fixed an issue that might've been causing that bug. Thanks for the bug reports!
- Profile picture uploading bug - also should be fixed... let us know if you're still having any issues with profile pics - thanks!
- Tags* - the module uses tags to determine whether posts are related. If the module can't find any related posts based on tags, it simply shows a few of your recent posts.
Comments (34)
first to comment!
Awesome.
Sounds neat. Time to start tagging!
Cool.
Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.
I think the tag approach is a much better one than searching the text. After all it's up to the author of the blog what and why they want people to click their post. If the text is simply searched for related words it often gives you kind of weird results and things you arent really looking fo as you see in google sometimes...and when the 'idea' behind a post or its actual topic is rather abstract it might be hard to find that way. For example if I write a story about autism I don't use the word 'autism' 20 times in my text.
Thanks for the updates, Xanga Team. We appreciate the hard work.
I like this. How far back will it search the tags? I've noticed that when I use the search feature to look for an old post on my site, it doesn't always go back as far as I need it to. Is there a time limit after which tags and keywords "expire" from searches?
It is always good to hear wha is going on here, thanks for the update!
Awesome.
@saintvi - strange... the search results should have tags from all your posts. Justin is looking into it now.
Man approved.
Yay that the profile pic crash bug is fixed. I noticed and was quite relieved when it stopped. Thanks!
nice
thank you for all the hard work!!!!!
Awesome awesome, keep it up! Look forward to trying that out.
These images, are they pulled only from photos stored in-house? Like, will it pick up images that are stored on Photobucket?
@LyricallyCharged - it uses only xanga-hosted images for now... (that's what we've been using on our own sites). But we might end up re-addressing that spec in a later version of the feature...
Great for making this a better blogging experience! But how about some work on known issues? I want access to a former account. I have tried over and over again to get ahold of someone in customer service with no results whatsoever. How can we who are having problems get your attention???
I love it!
@marc - Hm. I personally use mostly photobucket because my camera takes such large sized images that Xanga's uploader is used to capacity on my account very quickly and resizing EVERY image I want to use would take me longer than writing the post.
Other than that, I love this update!
Ooo awesome! Looks like I should start tagging all my posts! I'm excited for this!
Marc, thanks! My site is fixed!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
I am glad you fixed the comment bug.
It is great you are adding all of these features to xanga.
Sweet.
Are you guys ever going to incorporate an "ignore" function? I'd love to have the ability to never see certain bloggers again, or any rec's or comments shared affiliated with said blogger cluttering up my feed.
I like it!
This is awesome
I do use tags, but posting pictures for me is just far too troublesome.....
awesome news! keep up the great work!
lucyleely is online and spamming Xangans. Please shut it down. Thanks.
Your post is rocking and knowledgeable. I really appreciate the way you write. I would like to read more from you.
Hair Cutting Shears
Good thing you fixed it!!
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