List of Top Viewed Authors on Knol

including a table over time

(wHdc) Knol authors sorted in order of page views over time, with a prefaced discussion of some past-and-present problems with the page views counter

Authors

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Written 2009 by Will Johnson
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[Edit]
Directory Project

English Knol Project

This Knol should be cited as:
"List of Top Viewed Authors on Knol" by Will Johnson, wjhonson@aol.com, on Knol.Google.Com
URL: http://knol.google.com/k/list-of-top-viewed-authors-on-knol
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License"

Archive:  29 Mar 2009
Archive: 4 May 2010

[Edit]
This Knol addresses the questions: How does the pageviews counter work?  Who are the most popular authors on Knol in terms of total pageviews?  I have written another article that addresses the question : How many pageviews are the Top Viewed Authors getting this week and how rapidly are they climbing the Top Viewed Author chart?  For that article see List of Fastest Rising Knol Authors

The current list of the authors with the most pageviews, sorted by pageviews can be seen at this interactive link: Top Viewed Authors : A list of the top viewed authors on Knol.  This however does not allow us to see how these authors become more or less popular over time.  And it does not allow us to spot authors who might be abusing the pageviews metric, for example by using robots.  For that purpose I have created a table where we can examine the week-by-week changes in the authors and their pageview numbers.

I have been asked how does an author get the Top Viewed Author Award?  I believe that once your Total Pageviews passes 1,000 views, you will automatically get this award.  And how does a Knol get a Top Viewed Knol Award?  The cutoff there at least as of Sep 2009 is somewhere between 2400 and 2450 views.  I know this because one of my knols, which I've been watching daily, just got this award.  This cutoff point however, moves over time.  As of Jan 2010, the current cutoff for this award, is somewhere between 3300 and 3600 views.  I know this, because all my knols over 3600 views have the award, and the ones under 3300 views do not.


How does the pageviews counter work?

How the pageview counters work, is not entirely clear.  One thing that is clear, pageview counts are not instantaneous.  That is, if someone views your page right now, your displayed pageview count for that page, and your total pageview count does not go up right away.  This is true, even if you refresh the page.

It is possible that pageview counts are supposed to be update once per day or something of that sort.  Over the past three months, this has happened, then failed to happen sometimes for up to a week.  See this archived version of this page for past discrepancies in this regard.

The Pageview counts on the "My Knols" listing page, do not always match the pagecounts views on the sidebar of any particular page.  When they do not match, the sidebar is usually a larger number, but I've also seen smaller numbers there.  Apparently the My Knols listing must be created statically at some point, while the individual pages are a bit more dynamic (but still not instantaneous).

A list of some issues I've seen with the Pageviews counter

I've only included here the more recent issues. See this archived version of this page for past discrepancies in this regard.

Here's an interesting update, on 17 Feb 2010 fft2001 noticed that even unpublished blank knols get a few pageviews.  See the article: Robots viewing Unpublished Knols?

Things have been going along well until the week of 15 Mar 2010 when the daily pageview totals stopped updating daily.  After several days, we got an update, then again nothing, until several more days passed.  Perhaps the Knol team is now going to semi-weekly updates?

Another new development is the appearance of the Knol Publishing Guild, a group of self-selected authors who have formed a collective.  You can see them now at position four below.  By adding the Knol Publishing Guild as an author to several of each of their knols, they have pushed this entity to near the top of the chart below.  This is not the first collective we've seen, but it's certainly the most ambitious.

By April 2010 the daily updates have started appearing again.  Some authors were surprised when their weekly totals were much higher than previously.  Is this a true reflection?  Or an artifact of some change in the counting scheme?  Too early to say.

The end of April, beginning of May there is a battle brewing to see who will be in positions 7-10.  All four authors are very close, within a few thousand views of each other.

You are not alone!  Everyone's "total pageviews" for this author have been stuck on the count as of 19 Aug 2010. I'm not certain that there is anyone actually fixing issues like this anymore.  I don't know who at Google is the overseer for Knol.  Hopefully someone there will notice this and fix it.

The "total pagesviews for this author" came on again in November 2010, then shut off.  It came on again on 21 Jan 2011.  Maybe they are only updating this now, every few months ?  It just update again on 6 Apr 2011.

Current Table of Top Viewed Authors

Top Viewed Authors : The system-generated list of the top viewed authors on Knol

Knol-Authors Discussion Group

[Edit]

  
Authors Total Pageviews as of
 #  Author 06 Apr 11 21 Jan 11 09 Nov 10 19 Aug 10 04 May 10 30 Apr 10 23 Apr 10
 1 손지훈  6226493
 5679934  4851467  4428000  3200000  3159000  3106000
 2 eHowKnol  3538647  3158969  2692933  2388000  1795000  1775000  1738000
 3 Knol Publishing Guild  2992936  2598260  2128074  1831000  1313000  1293000  1243000
 4 Narayana Rao K.V.S.S.  2658045  2228232  1683409  1418000  1059000  1048000  1033000
 5 Will Johnson  2286405  1806448  1156599  896000  596000  587000  570000
 6 György Tausz  2160753  2101884  2045665  2008000  1936000  1934000  1931000
 7 Krishan Maggon  1508568  1270624  1005206  857000  596000  583000  564000
 8 muhannad alsheikhly  1463175  1210556  926198  790000  543000  528000  506000
 9 Sonia Gabrielli  1334321  1074897  776439  614000  445000  432000  413000
 10 Aquarel-Art Arts.Web.Group  1120068  1014165  840533  736000  594000  589000  579000

[Edit]

  
Authors Total Pageviews as of
 #  Author 07 Apr 11 21 Jan 11 09 Nov 10 19 Aug 10 04 May 10 30 Apr 10 23 Apr 10
 11 Garry Jenkins  1102233  968354  792004  681000  481000  475000  459000
 12 SALIM DJELOUAT  1088704  980922  849742  758000  594000  587000  575000
 13 Moharram Khalifa
دكتور/ محرم خليفه		  1050598  912174  624161  526000  429000  421000  409000
 14 Kevin Spaulding  1031394  965766  860575  790000  647000  642000  633000
 15 Gust MEES  1006062  844777  658533  553000  366000  361000  
 16 Peter Baskerville  1000165  868716  713266  614000  441000  432000  416000
 17 Andreas Kemper  904155  839550  739090  671000  527000  524000  515000
 18 横山泰行
Yasuyuki Yokoyama 		 786280  722424  647039  600000  494000  492000  486000
 19 Chair Potato  772727  405924  318000    211000    
 20 Jim Strickland  753811  749282  741746  652000  502000  497000  486000

[Edit]

  
Authors Total Pageviews as of
 #  Author 07 Apr 11 09 Nov 10 19 Aug 10 04 May 10 30 Apr 10 23 Apr 10
 21 Sajid Khan  712472  539716  478000    364000  360000
 22 Patrick Lahaye   689166  513858  449000    332000    
 23 Sara  658465  620075  562928  522000  444000  441000  436000
 24 Gladys Gahona  644024  434253  366000    243000    
 25 John Mueller  596065  419335  355000        
 26 Claes Johnson  587981  463443  412000    311000    
 27 Sergio Casiraghi  582476  436446  387000    280000    
 28 Sébastien BURNEAU  577695  430779  378000    281000    
 29 周曙光 教育、培训, 煤炭坝镇  532322  424368  315000    288000    
 30 Katrina Eagle  421703  420830  372000    286000    

[Edit]

  
Authors Total Pageviews as of
 #  Author 09 Nov 10 19 Aug 10 04 May 10 30 Apr 10 23 Apr 10 5 Apr 10 29 Mar 10
 31 Roman Pustina  399546  346000    265000      239000
 32 Dark Magus  393936  350000    293000      264000
 33 Ana Belén de Lucas  385492  334000    237000      203000
 34 Douglas Rosinski  379130  335000    257000      230000
 35 Klaus Rohde  374543  339000    244000      210000
36-39 Sagar Kamdar, Riona MacNamara, Susan Moskwa, Anonymous,
 374198  325000    222000      184000
 40 Guillaume L.  364573  334000    266000      235000

[Edit]

  
Authors Total Pageviews as of
 #  Author 09 Nov 10 19 Aug 10 04 May 10 30 Apr 10 23 Apr 10 5 Apr 10 29 Mar 10
 41  Antonio Centeno  355552  286000    174000      137000
 42 devnull devakm  354874  331000    273000      251000
 43 Peter Greenfinch  348447  296000    219000      190000
 44 Islamway website  336630  312000    265000      245000
 45 Lyonel Baum  332952  308000    240000      214000
 46 patrice bouyrat  325702  302000    266000      252000
 47 Manuel  324759  267000          
 48 Jesus Martin Calvo  323436  298000    249000      226000
 49  322576  282000    184000      149000
 50 Murry Shohat  314724  274000    203000      173000

[Edit]

  
Authors Total Pageviews as of
 #  Author 09 Nov 10 19 Aug 10 04 May 10 30 Apr 10 23 Apr 10 5 Apr 10 29 Mar 10
 51  عبدالعظيم المسلم  302003  274000    245000      219000
 52 Craig Goldwyn  290171  265000    219000      206000
 53 Gmail Team Member  286161  244000    168000      140000
 54 Frank W Sweet  283588  263000    223000      209000
 55 Jorge Luis Breña Oré  280549  244000    170000      139000
 56 Francisco Quiumento  280086  235000    164000      136000
 57 Max Iskram  279625  212000          
 58 Norman Creaney  276058  234000    171000      
 59 Rajamanickam Antonimuthu  275284  226000          
 60 Lars Terjesen  270550  247000    206000      193000

[Edit]

  
Authors Total Pageviews as of
 #  Author 09 Nov 10 19 Aug 10 04 May 10 30 Apr 10 23 Apr 10 5 Apr 10 29 Mar 10
 61 The Family Handyman Magazine  267946  250000    217000      205000
 62 Advisor Steve  262871  249000    215000      201000
 63 yijun  
毛贻军 自由作者, 北京|上海 		 260917  247000    195000      180000
 64 Tom F. Lue  256106  242000    208000      185000
 65 Alan Shindel  256106  242000    208000      185000
 66 apline  251576  243000    217000      211000
 67 minoo bhagia  255302  228000    174000      149000
 68 Karl Kazmierczak, Esq.  257612  226000    172000      153000
 69  Alberto Auné  256791  226000    160000      
 70 Emily Kennard  248499  219000    199000      188000
 71 Richard Pattison  248263  219000    199000      188000
 72 Noshir Mehta  238879  215000    172000      159000
 73 Partha Das Sharma  243640  208000          
   عبدالرحيم المضيان  209561            
 74 Internet Medical Publishing  243216  201000          
 75 Spiros Kakos  202354  197000          
 76 eHow.com  217490  196000          143000
 77 Ryan Moulton  203030  195000    177000      170000
 78 Usman Ismail  218828  195000          135000

Knol-Authors Discussion Group

Wjhonson's Knols - Total Pageviews - Independent Counter joomla stats

Comments

weekly page views of top authors - 23-4-2011

Compiled the recent list

http://knol.google.com/k/narayana-rao-k-v-s-s/weekly-page-views-of-top-knol-authors/2utb2lsm2k7a/4338

There are more authors with 5000 weekly page views now.

Narayana Rao - 24 Apr 2011

Added the knol to a collection

http://knol.google.com/k/narayana-rao-k-v-s-s/top-knol-authors-knol-book/2utb2lsm2k7a/4306#

Narayana Rao - 14 Apr 2011

Analytics Data

Mr. Johnson

Can you write something on your analytics stats in the forum knol

http://knol.google.com/k/narayana-rao-k-v-s-s/knol-authors-and-visitors-forum/2utb2lsm2k7a/3980#view

Narayana Rao - 07 Apr 2011

Knol Has Traction - Authors With Useful Content Getting Visitors and Page Views

Added link of this page in the knol

http://knol.google.com/k/narayana-rao-k-v-s-s/knol-has-traction-authors-with-useful/2utb2lsm2k7a/3935#view

Narayana Rao - 15 Feb 2011

Will Johnson Úr!

Tájékoztatom, hogy az általam mért nézettség december 22-án 3.075.ooo. A knol számláló hol működik, hol nem, és nagyon pontatlan!

To inform you that I have measured the audience on 22 December 3.075.ooo. was. A knol counter sometimes works, sometimes not, and is very inaccurate!

György Tausz - 15 Feb 2011

Dear Gyorgy Tausz

I always remember that your knols are getting good visitors numbers. Regards.

Narayana Rao - 15 Feb 2011

Congratulations - Will Johnson

For Million page views

Narayana Rao - 11 Nov 2010

Will Johnson at Number 7

Congratulations.

Narayana Rao - 04 May 2010

Házi praktikák!


Sokan kérdezik tőlem, hogy miért olyan sikeres a „Házi praktikák” c. weboldal a knolon. A lap nézettsége már megközelíti a 2 milliót (félév alatt).
A válasz egyszerű: az ilyen tartalmú weblapokra nagy az igény. A témák ugyanis szorosan kapcsolódnak az emberek életéhez, napi tevékenységéhez. Az emberek többet szeretnének tudni a háztartás titkairól, trükkjeiről. Tehát nem véletlen a fokozott érdeklődés a knol cikkei iránt.
Természetesen a látogatottság növelhető lenne, ha a cikkek angolul is megjelennének. De erre egyelőre nincs lehetőség.

Domestic practices!

Many people ask me why it is so successful in the "Domestic Practices' website of the Knol. This page is close to 2 million viewers (semesters).
The answer is simple: the content of such websites are in high demand. A theme is closely linked to people's lives, daily activities. People want to learn about the mysteries of the household, tricks. So not coincidence of an increased interest in the articles for Knol.
Of course, the hits could be increased if the articles appear in English. But this is not yet available.

György Tausz - 20 Apr 2010

Interesting!

Three days the pageviews from 10-15 thousand (day) regressed to 500. Much more people look at it in Hungary at this Knol articles. What may be his reason?

Érdekes!
Három napja a nézettségem 10-15 ezerről (nap) 500-ra esett vissza. Ennél jóval többen nézik Magyarországon a Knol cikkeket. Mi lehet az oka?

György Tausz - 15 Mar 2010

Please ask this question in Knol Help Page and let knol help give the explanation.

Yesterday only I also noticed that your weekly page views had gone down. We all hope they go up once again.

Have you installed google analytics. How was its behavior?

Narayana Rao - 15 Mar 2010

Correction in page number of 1 and 2

Dear Johnson

You have to correct the page view numbers of 1 and 2 authors. May be you need to add an additional zero.

Narayana Rao - 26 Jan 2010

손지훈 and György Tausz

Knol Authors have to rejoice in the success of the above two authors instead of being suspicious. Somebody has to succeed on knol platform and when we find some we need to applaud them and know what they are doing for the success.

Gyorgy Tausz is building an encyclopedia in his country's language Hungarian. There may not be much competition for him. Hence he may be getting good number of page views.

English authors have tremendous competition form web sites, blogs and other article platforms. It is difficult for English knol authors to attract visitors to their articles as they are late entrants into the scene. English knol authors have to know more about SEO techniques to make their knols rank better. Still knol focussed SEO articles are not many on Knol platform. SEO experts on knol are not showing that much interest in helping fellow knol authors achieve some success on google search pages.

We have, more active people, who are more interested in criticizing fellow authors and demoralizing them than helping people to achieve more on knol.

Once again I appreciate your efforts to maintain this record and I get cues from your knol to find successful authors. I thought of an idea that each knol author can take up a theme and promote knol writing in that subject or theme. I thought of Industrial Engineering as my theme. What theme would you like to promote on knol? Entertainment on TV Channels?

Narayana Rao - 23 Jan 2010

Not able to write in English

I am not able to write in English from any of my gmail ids.
What could be the problem. Any idea?

Narayana Rao KVSS
http://knol.google.com/k/narayana-rao-kvss/-/2utb2lsm2k7a/0

Anonymous - 22 Dec 2009

Thanks

As mentioned under the sub head: "A list of some issues I've seen with the Page views counter", I too experienced some similar ones, it was something like this, almost four to five days my page view total was showing the same but at the same time week page views showed it increase and the individual knol page view too was showed an increase, but the total remains same. As you pointed out here I did some editing in the existing knols and yesterday it showed my increased page view. It seems there is some cliche to fix by the knol system. Thanks for providing your experience with the page view. And thanks for the wonderful list of our great knol authors. Keep us inform Will.

P V Ariel - 13 Dec 2009

Congratulations for Crossing 200,000 page view mark

Will Johnson Congratulations.
I could say it in my knol marathon commentary.

http://knol.google.com/k/narayana-rao-k-v-s-s/-/2utb2lsm2k7a/1966#

There is breaking news on knol authors.

A new star György Tausz emerged on the knol running ground. His weekly page views are 38,862 and cumulative page views are 111,941. Congratulations and Welcome. He is knol knight and a centurion knoller.

Narayana Rao - 21 Nov 2009

Thank you for maintenance of the list

Your list excites people.
You said last time that I may stay at four long time. But the movement was faster. Now it will stay there for some time.
Both eHow and 손지훈 are very popular and probably have the resources for doing good things on a continous basis.

I am happy that I reached this position of top rank English knol author. I did not expect it when I started. It is a good achievement and now I become a target for others to cross as quickly as possible and thus contribute to the growth of knol. I am happy today and I shall be happy when somebody crosses me also. Knol needs very very popular authors with millions of page views per year. We have done some work in the initial years and we await the emergence of real popular authors on knol.

Global Number One Individual English Knol Author
http://knol.google.com/k/narayana-rao-k-v-s-s/-/2utb2lsm2k7a/1937#

Narayana Rao - 04 Nov 2009

Adsense gives $100 for 60,000 to 100,000 page views shown in adsense statistics. My page views have gone up in adsense statistics,but they differ from knol statistics. I do get a cheque every two months, half of the amount comes from my blogs and half from knol. So the amount is very small, and is insignificant when compared to my salary income. As you said it is not a primary driver now, our interest to share knowledge and develop written materials is the primary driver now. But over a period of time, I do see more scope for more adsense income. I think looking forward to $1000 a month can be a reasonable expectation for some knol authors. But they have to come out with plans for page views and authors themselves must have the plan to acquire page views. They have to study and learn the ways of successful bloggers in attracting visitors.

Narayana Rao - 04 Nov 2009

Are you making any significant amount of money through Ad Sense? Not that that is a primary driver for me, but I was expecting to make a little more than I am.

Will Johnson - 04 Nov 2009

Top Authors of USA and Their Top Knols

I started a series of knols to list knol authors of each state of USA and their top knols. The main page is
Knol Authors of USA and Their Top Knols - State-Wise Lists

http://knol.google.com/k/narayana-rao-k-v-s-s/knol-authors-of-usa-and-their-top-knols/2utb2lsm2k7a/1900#

I invite you to be coauthor for this page. We may put in some joint efforts to promote knol, knols and knol authors in USA.

Narayana Rao - 20 Oct 2009

Highlight if a new author enters the list

You can make the list probably as 75, 80, or 100 to get round number. You can also highlight, if a new author is entering the list. It will be good if new authors come onto the knol and quickly write good knols and start attracting visitors.

Narayana Rao - 10 Oct 2009

this knol is part of the collection: About Knol

http://knol.google.com/k/dzakone/-/35aqg2j8slgb9/24#view

Kalle Schwarz - 13 Sep 2009

Top active US authors

Dear Mr. Johnson

Can you identify the top 10 active US authors. You are one of them. If you identify them, then some activity can be planned to promote knol in USA through them. I find good response to my information efforts through blogs or emails. If some others try also I am sure good response will come. Please see if you can find from your list active US authors. Then we can try to find out their page view numbers, the areas of knols they have written and what needs to be done to increase viewers and page views. We need active authors and not some authors who were requested by knol long back to write one or two knols. They may have no further interest in knol.

Narayana Rao - 23 Aug 2009

손지훈 Korean author

손지훈 has many knols with good page views. Last week he had more than 50,000 page views. Good for knol.

I am requesting you to total up top 50 authors cumulative page views.
I started doing it for top 800 knols.

http://knol.google.com/k/narayana-rao-kvss/page-views-for-top-800-knols/2utb2lsm2k7a/1523#

Now we have some way of monitoring aggregate page views of knol.
Please find cumulative page views top 50 authors. It will be a good matric from your effort. At a later stage you can remove people who wrote only one knol on invitation basis and include only those authors who are writing on a continuous basis.

Appreciate your effort and presentation

Narayana Rao - 18 Aug 2009

The author is climbing fast. Don't know in which area he is writing knols. Good for the knol platform.

My recent estimate is that knol had 30 million page views last year.

I want to make an estimate of daily page views and monthly page views also.

Narayana Rao - 18 Aug 2009

Suspicious. Yes we can doubt.

Yes I mean the total of all the 50 authors. Yes. so that we can see a total for the entire project.

Narayana Rao - 05 Aug 2009

I know you think that 50,000 views a week is great, but I find it a bit suspicious.

Not sure what you mean by "total up top 50 authors cumulative page views", this page is the top authors cumulative page views. That's what the table shows. OR did you mean, add them all to each other? So we'd see a total for the entire project ?

Chair Potato - 05 Aug 2009

No. 5 Rank

Thank you for recording the No. 5 rank. You only showed a table sometime back and predicted that my rank will improve.

Who are active knol authors now, who are writing knols periodically and improving their page views. We need many active knol authors. I see next to me in immediate succesion, Andreas Kemper as an active knol author. You are a very active knol author. Ryan Moulton wrote a new knol recently. He can write more knols.

Top viewed knol data is not getting updated properly at the lower end. I am writing about it in various knol help pages. But so far nobody replied. There are many knols with 1000+ page views. But they are not getting reflected in the list.

Narayana Rao - 14 Aug 2009

Thank you.

I am not really looking at climbing up. I am also not worried about climbing down.

I am more worried about the survival and growth of knol platform. We put in our good effort on it and I want the platform to survive. If there are more active authors who cooperate with each other to attract more visitors to the platform, it will certainly become successful. Some healthy competition among ourselves we can always have on a strong platform. Even if our ideas overlap and all of us write knols on the same topic, finally only four or five will attract visitors and other knols will just remain on the platform.

So there is no need to pick up quarrels and fights, and we all have to keep writing knols and promoting knols to the extent we can.

Do you have a blog. Writing good comments on knols in blogs is good way of making people notice the knol articles. In the process, both blog and knols will have some visitors.

Narayana Rao - 14 Aug 2009

Yes congratulations on moving up! Within the next month you will pass Sara who isn't a very active climber. But then I'm afraid you will sit at Number 4 for a very long time!

I only have a limited amount of time to work on this knol and so that's why I only update the top 70 to 80 or so. The system-generated listing of the top authors isn't working right now. I wrote a comment to Knol Help and I think they are looking into it.

Will Johnson - 14 Aug 2009

Hello Will Johnson

The pageviews of the most Knol Authors are decreasing between 12 March and 15 March. How is it possible?

Andreas Kemper - 29 Mar 2009

Hello Will and Andreas,

We are correcting some defects in the Page Count metric, as well as rewriting the implementation to update it more frequently and reliably. Some declines occurs as we switched over from one method of counting to another.

Knol Help - 29 Mar 2009

I think you're right. The actually weekly pageviews for some Knol Authors are extrem high. Maybe it depends also on the correcting.

Andreas Kemper - 16 Mar 2009

I addressed this in my comments above. I *believe* that quite possibly the Knol programmers have noticed some kind of flaw in the logic.

For example I remarked above that if you add the number of hits for all their knols you don't get the total views, and if you add the "This Weeks" views to last weeks count you don't get the current count.

So I think the logic in how the counts are counted is flawed in some way. They are probably correcting it in small steps so as not to make it any worse.

That's my guess!

Will

Will Johnson - 16 Mar 2009

Super Knol and Page View Stars

Many authors in this list are racing towards 1 million Page views. It may be good to have the number of knols posted by each of these stars under their names?

Krishan Maggon - 19 Mar 2009