Webtoons stats tanking - anyone knows what's going on?

Samuraiflame 2017-12-05 00:55:11 UTC #3

I think one of the recent site updates has made it harder for people to find smaller comics(?) and it seems to be a general problem for everyone.

My own stats over there have been pretty steady, though I have noticed some slowness in new subs coming in (rather than a ton of them appearing when I JUST update, they sort of trickle in slowly throughout the week). Views, likes and comments have overall stayed pretty consistent for me. Some updates do better than others, but I've never had any huge drops.

My own guess is that they're focusing on promoting the top 30 comics of every genre. But with the secondary genre option, popular comics are overlapping and taking up space in other categories, which pushes smaller ones even further down the list. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but in my own browsing experience, I'm getting used to seeing the same things repeatedly in the Discover section and very little of anything new.

BraniAndNess 2017-12-05 00:59:28 UTC #4

Damn I had no clue, thanks for the insight! That would account for how news subscribers and views haven't been coming in as much... I wonder though, how come so little of our own subscribers are seeing our updates! Are they not getting notified?

BraniAndNess 2017-12-05 01:02:28 UTC #5

That's very interesting! I didn't know they made these changes D:
Do you have any idea how you escaped a drastic view drop? You must be doing something right!

ahkwardkat 2017-12-05 01:13:35 UTC #6

I think peraonally a lot of views are gonna drop this time of year. A lot of people on WebT are grade school amd college users. Most are heading into exams and midterms, thesis things, etc.

Plus there are a lot of major holidays all over the world in November and December. I think that the new algorithm and combined "irl distractions" are compounding into a large loss of feedback and views atm.

To add, people like me who work and are out of school/college might be working overtime / more hours than normal to have some slending cash for the hoidays. I know I am! Lol

Idk, just my theory.

Samuraiflame 2017-12-05 01:16:17 UTC #7

¯_(ツ)_/¯
I don't think I've done anything particularly special. I post every weekend on Sunday at midnight, so old readers are probably familiar with the schedule and know when to expect a new update. Otherwise, I just try and reply to every comment. The Webtoons readers seem to really appreciate when the author 'notices' them (a few have literally thanked me just for replying to them, which I find kind of cute)

I also let them know ahead of time if I'm going to miss an update because of school, and they've been really understanding. (Hell, a ton of them wished me luck on my midterms, and they're currently waiting on me to finish my finals lol)

In any case, I do think the system is the main reason for the drop for most people, but it's best to just keep doing what you do and people will come naturally if they enjoy the content.

lunaartemisasama 2017-12-05 01:57:35 UTC #8

I don't know if this counts, but there was a bug in their desktop page like two months and it took ages to upload chapters, I hope it is fixed. At least I don't have problems rigth now, but that's because I followed the instructions in the link below

BraniAndNess 2017-12-05 02:00:38 UTC #9

Interesting! I hadn't considered this since our views were steady prior to this, but it's our first year here and we haven't been through the October-December period yet. Maybe it's always like this! Thanks for the insight!

BraniAndNess 2017-12-05 02:03:47 UTC #10

Haha I know what you mean! We answer every comment and people really seem to appreciate that! One had a little "sempai noticed me" fangirl moment which was so cute, I wanted to say "oh please, it's just us not anyone special" haha

Come hell or high water we always have a new page every Monday morning, so like you said we'll just keep working hard and I hope people will come back!

BraniAndNess 2017-12-05 02:05:16 UTC #11

I didn't know this! D: 2 months ago is exactly when our views suddenly tanked! Maybe there's a link there...

ahkwardkat 2017-12-05 02:10:28 UTC #12

I agree in that users are really respectful of IRL situations. I just got promoted to a managerial position and with my training plus an internship where I am animating, I do nkt have time to update everyweek. Once a month right now if I am lucky.

Hopefully being in this situation so long wont impact me too hard. But I am hoping as users are not gonna abandon me after being gone so long due to work. Xnx

revisionstudios 2017-12-05 02:17:54 UTC #13

This honestly explains a lot! I've been seeing the same drop, and it was a bit alarming to me. Mostly noticeable to me with subs--I would get like 30-50 subs each update before, and now I barely get 10 most weeks. To be honest it mostly just hit my self confidence and I thought there must be something wrong with the comic. TvT

Which, could still be the case I suppose, but I'm glad to hear that there IS a component to it that is just the website.

BraniAndNess 2017-12-05 02:24:39 UTC #14

I feel you! Although some part of me knew that it was too sudden and probably couldn't be solely explained by the content itself, both me and my partner have had a serious hit in self-confidence... We work so hard and were used to seeing results, and suddenly there are no more...We've been feeling pretty depressed about this! But it did force us to come up with new ways to improve the comic and the overall reading experience!

Emevsa 2017-12-05 12:30:11 UTC #15

So many people have been reporting this. It hit us pretty hard and we're super new too which has not helped our confidence. The worst thing is there are no forums or real manner of communicating how these changes have affected us as a community. I've seen people begin to wonder if there is any point to webtoons now as the main draw was the huge audience.

LordVincent 2017-12-05 12:39:21 UTC #16

Right now I only lose subs whenever I update on there.

It's a bitch but what can ya do?

BraniAndNess 2017-12-05 13:29:27 UTC #17

Some weeks we do too It is discouraging but like you said, it's not going to make us stop updating!

BraniAndNess 2017-12-05 13:31:25 UTC #18

Amen! I emailed the help desk twice in 2 months (especially after I saw a glitch in which I LOST 500 views during a day... how does that happen) and didn't even get an answer I was beginning to feel so depressed because I thought it might be our fault we were losing views... There's a big lack of communication from Webtoons, and not tools so that we can communicate to them either...

genjiOtori 2017-12-05 14:26:38 UTC #19

I wrote them too because I had a huge drop in views (from around 4k to barely 400). No answer from them - and I don't expect them to answer any time soon. Really lost confidence in anything I upload but... welp, what can you do as a small creator.

LordVincent 2017-12-05 15:11:07 UTC #20

It's not a small creator problem. Everyone is affected.

genjiOtori 2017-12-05 15:30:39 UTC #21

Well, small creators don't generate lots of traffic. So why should they listen to a few e-mails of creators complaining about a couple of thousands view? Table turns if creators of, let's say 100k views, write e-mails about huge drops...
And I actually don't know how affected they are. But as a small creator I don't see much more opportunities than exchanging experiences with other creators and writing an e-mail informing Webtoons about these problems.

As long as Webtoons doesn't communicate via "Notice" with creators, everything is just speculation. Maybe they are working on some fixes - maybe not. Who knows. We can only wait and hope.

LordVincent 2017-12-05 15:34:34 UTC #22

This is false. I have 5 million views on Webtoon total on only one of my 4 series I have on there, and last time I wrote them about something they ignored me.
I haven't written them any emails about this whole ordeal because I know they wouldn't care any more about me doing it than any of all the other people writing them emails about it.