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Traffic report

Shutdown shenanigans

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By Serendipodous

Summary: If you're living in the United States, what did you do during the government shutdown? Well, it seems most people watched the final episode of Breaking Bad. Real life and fantasy clashed head on this week, as the first government shutdown in 17 years coincided with the series finale of one of the most popular television shows of recent times. TV beat real life by a hair.

For the week of September 29 to October 4, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 Breaking Bad B-class 1,479,907
The final episode of this acclaimed chemistry teacher-turned-Scarface TV series aired on September 29.
2 United States federal government shutdown of 2013 C-class 730,644
The shutdown of the government was the other major topic of discussion this week.
3 Tom Clancy C-class 675,054
The popular writer of military thrillers like The Hunt For Red October and Clear and Present Danger died on October 1.
4 Government shutdown disambig 618,240
A disambig most likely reached by people looking for #2
5 List of Breaking Bad episodes List 605,400
People will turn to this page to keep up with the show.
6 Breaking Bad (season 5) List 571,349
As above, people want to keep up with this show.
7 Government shutdown in the United States C-class 556,134
This is the article on the concept of a US government shutdown, again probably reached by people looking for #2.
8 Facebook B-class 515,310
A perennially popular article
9 Lorde Good Article 502,186 The not-quite 17-year-old singer-songwriter from New Zealand released her debut album, Pure Heroine, on 27 September.
10 Gravity (film) Good Article 426,904 Acclaimed director Alfonso Cuaron's outer space opus was the #1 movie at the US box office this weekend, earning $55 million; the biggest opening of Sandra Bullock's career.
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Just curious, why was Lycos and G-force not included? They polled higher than Gravity. Liz Read! Talk! 18:57, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Been busy this week, so didn't do my usual in-depth coverage, but "g-force" and "Lycos" are standard removals, because they always chart and I can never find a plausible reason for them to do so. Serendipodous 01:01, 11 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
See, now, I only asked, Serendipodous, because I was hoping you could explain why either (but especially Lycos) were so popular! Liz Read! Talk! 14:43, 11 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The general consensus for "G-force"(or "G", which also charts often) is that people are typing "G" for "Google" into Google Chrome's search bar and then hastily clicking "Enter". As for Lycos, no idea, but I suspect artificial inflation, ala Yahoo a few weeks back. Serendipodous 15:15, 11 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We keep seeing Facebook in these traffic reports, but not other popular websites like Twitter, YouTube or Google. Is there any chance that the statistics are being manipulated somehow? --Guy Macon (talk) 21:29, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Other websites always appear in the top 25; it's just that Facebook happens to be the most popular website on Earth right now. Serendipodous 01:01, 11 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I imagine there's also a high degree of looking for facebook.com and getting the WP article. Bounce rate stats would clear that up czar ♔ 21:27, 11 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, for Twitter, many people use it via third party apps or mobile devices, not the website. But Serendipodous has a longer list, you can see last weeks at User:Serendipodous/Top25. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Liz (talk • contribs) 01:59, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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