Confused about the "Nice Share" badge

#21

I’m thinking the bots might be picking up oneboxed links that aren’t always obvious (might explain at least some of the mysterious counts) .

For example, the second post by TechnoBear in this topic has
https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/how-to-find-out-the-duplicate-content/198577/26?u=technobear

The onebox doesn’t display the “?u=technobear” and there is no gutter link.[quote=“codinghorror, post:19, topic:43180”]
auto-remove the username param from links
[/quote]

Or at least from the bot-view pages

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#22

As I said, in that topic I did link back to an earlier post I’d made in the same topic. But that’s the exception.

https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/how-to-make-an-external-template-to-work-in-wordpress/213395
I took no part in that discussion, and can’t imagine why I (or anybody else, frankly) would have linked to it.

https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/what-are-all-factors-involved-in-choosing-the-best-hosting/197886/2
I did take part in that discussion, and I did quote post #3, but the badge is awarded for post #2. As I said, I would have linked directly to the mentioned resource, had I wanted to, not to the post.

https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/responsive-data-tables-a-comprehensive-list-of-solutions/139927
Again, I took no part in this discussion, and there is no indication I ever linked to it from within the forum. I have no recollection of so-doing - and in any case, I’d have been more likely to link to the original article.

https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/responsive-web-design-for-table-layouts/41870/10
Another topic I took no part in, and the only time I linked to that post, as far as I can see, was after I was awarded the “Nice Share” badge and got confused about it.

https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/how-to-get-do-follow-links/207148/16
This is one of my own posts, for which I was awarded this badge. As far as I can see, the only reference to the post is where @Mittineague quoted it in the following post.

https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/how-to-get-do-follow-links/207148/13
Another post of mine in the same topic; not linked from anywhere, as far as I can see.

Now, it is possible that I’ve quoted those last two posts in another topic (I get tired of constantly repeating myself), but I haven’t linked to them.

2 Likes
#23

OK - I got another one this morning that does fall into that category.

I was awarded the badge for this post:
https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/bought-the-me-domain-name-should-i-buy-co-uk-as-well/202074/2
and I remember linking to that from here:
https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/ranking-a-me-uk/215595/2

As you say, there are no gutter links shown. But if I search for text from the original posts, both topics appear in the search results - the original and the one-boxed link. So then I went back and searched for some of the others, and I have, indeed, linked to them. :blush:

So well-spotted, @Mittineague - it looks as if you’ve hit the nail on the head here.

But this leaves me with another question, which is: why are some links referenced in the gutter, while others are not? It can’t simply be to do with one-boxing, as I can find examples of one-boxed links which do show the gutter links.

#24

That also applies to the two shares I recently got. Wow. Okay, so the links are legit.

1 Like
#25

Well, it’s good to have confirmation that the bots are following links

“Need help with seo to get more better rank in results please tell suggest me” :wink:

And I don’t mind getting Badges.

Maybe my luddite side is showing, but I think I’d prefer to not get Badges from bot hits.

3 Likes
#26

Same here. Getting a “nice share” for linking between topics on the same site is just wrong, IMHO. And presumably this is also what’s driving the “Top Referrer” stats. I’m consistently listed as the second-highest referrer on our instance, yet I thought that was also supposed to reflect external traffic and as I’ve said, I don’t post anywhere else.

3 Likes
#27

I’m happy to find this topic.

I am also having this nice share badge multiple times (in MB) and I was wondering why.
Because, like @TechnoBear, I didn’t remember sharing each one of those posts.

I’m OK to receive more and more badges but it feels strange little bit strange ; I wonder what habits of mine make it so that I am currently the only one to get this badge multiple times (in MB).

3 Likes
#28

I think the main habit is probably the way you share links.

If you share links like so:

You will get no badge.

If you are used to sharing links like this, you will:

I do wonder, if we should try a “share” glyph instead of a “chain” glyph but can not find a glyph that communicates “share” any better, the one’s on font awesome ( http://fontawesome.io/icons/ ) are too easy to confuse with “reply”

#29

The share-alt glyph is what Android uses. To me that conveys “share”, but I’ve always (and only) been an Android user.

1 Like
#30

I have no problem with how the permalinks are presented and I do use extensively indeed.

But, as @TechnoBear says, I think there is a post ID mismatch or something.

If you look at my NICE SHARE badges, I think I never shared at least the last one Granted 1h « URGENT HELP All of my songs are missing from iTunes ».

I do have shared posts but I don’t think I have ever shared this one, I actually don’t remember even reading it.

Maybe there is an ID mismatch between the posts I have shared and those that are triggering my badge.

  • Either the wrong ID is sent on click
  • Or the wrong ID is used to show the badge list
  • Or something else like that.

I don’t know how to debug.
And I am not really bothered. I’m just reporting something.

#31

Unfortunately, much like @TechnoBear and myself, you too have linked to that discussion (so the Nice Share badge does indeed seem to be operating properly).

1 Like
#32

Wow, thanks very much @cpradio you have made my doubts vanish! :bow: :smile: :thumbsup:
I now have confidence in that badge. I think I just link even more than I can remember / imagine!

2 Likes
#34

I’m still confused. I keep earning “Nice Share” badges here on meta. The badge says:

This badge is granted for sharing a link that was clicked by 25 outside visitors.

I read “outside visitors” as “people who were brought to meta from a different website”. But, like many others in this topic, I am pretty sure I have not shared most of the posts outside meta…

2 Likes
#35

I’m seeing the same thing. For example I’ve been awarded ‘nice share’ badges for most of the links in my telegram plugin description. I haven’t shared most of those links outside of Meta

1 Like
#36

Please refer to earlier reply in topic explaining this.

2 Likes
#37

Ah, apologies, I was under the impression that this had been implemented. I guess not:

1 Like
#38

I’m not getting it. What exactly does this have to do with crawlers? I can see that they might further increase the number of hits, but the core of the issue is that internal links are being counted, right?

#39

No the core issue is that crawlers are hitting the links and are considered external people clicking the links. So either

  • disallow crawler hits from counting (kinda hard)

  • convince @sam to use The Power of CommonMark to strip the querystring username value from internal links

#40

So a click on an internal link with a username value only counts towards the score if it comes from a user that is not logged in? But even then, a click by a real person (that’s not logged in) would also count…

#41

Should we use the new crawler detection to block hits from bots as being counted as incoming link?

While working on the user merge I took a closer look at the incoming_links table and nearly all of the IP addresses I checked belong to bots.

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