Understanding Form Views

  • charmedlife
    Asked on March 16, 2017 at 1:46 PM

     when I login, the website tells me that we are "almost out of form views". I looked for a report on this (see attachment) and I see that 533 of the views are from "other".

     

    Is there a way to determine where "other" views are coming from? I know we're not getting that much traffic to the site so I'm surprised to be running out of form views. Any information you can give me would be of service.

    Jotform Thread 1093605 Screenshot
  • David JotForm Support
    Replied on March 16, 2017 at 4:00 PM

    You can see the recent traffic including IP's and such in the Traffic tab.  You can check the IP's and locations of recent visitors to see if anything is out of the ordinary.  Unfortunately, we do not have logs readily available for what is listed under the "Other" category.

  • charmedlife
    Replied on March 27, 2017 at 11:12 AM

    David, look at the support image I sent you. I have spent some time looking through all the people talking about this in the forum, and, most times, I see that some offer is made for adjustments for spidering, etc. 

    Has this practice of offering adjustments been stopped? If so, could we get some sort of smaller price when traffic to a form is based from spider's traffic and not actual people? 

    Seems like the spider traffic to a form might be outside of a webmaster's control (I am a tyro to this so please inform if you can help on that). 

    You are getting enough queries about this in your forum that I think it might be a good idea to publish something about it in a support file and write out a clear policy for all your clients who want to know what your company's position is for this. Do we pay for this traffic or not? Don't leave it up to us to decipher by going through all the forum Q and A. 

    Hopefully you will consider this. 

    Dan

     

     

  • David JotForm Support
    Replied on March 27, 2017 at 12:22 PM

    Replacing embedded forms with a link to the form would ensure that only users who wish to fill out the form are viewing it. 

    If you want unlimited form views limit, you can allow JotForm to display ad (Powered By JotForm) in the footer section of your forms. To do so, just check "JotForm Footer" on your settings page https://www.jotform.com/myaccount/settings. You should see "unlimited used" in your account status after that under Form Views.

    Understanding Form Views Image 1 Screenshot 20

  • charmedlife
    Replied on March 27, 2017 at 3:32 PM

    Thank you for your speedy reply. So, the "views" that are being counted due to visits by spiders are currently counting towards the limits. Is there some sort of technical definition of "view" which would include visits from spiders, even no one actually viewed the form?

    From your support doc: https://www.jotform.com/help/355-Form-View-Limits-What-is-it-all-about

    "This means that form views only count if someone else views the form. The same applies if you are not logged into the system while checking it."

    By adding up the numbers in your analytics provided, I am seeing 607 views in the last month, by adding up the numbers for each geographical area. See this: https://www.screencast.com/t/dUnUK31a2

    Seems odd to me that your views count for the same time period is exactly double (1214) ! Am I reading something wrong?

  • David JotForm Support
    Replied on March 27, 2017 at 5:31 PM

    Only if the form is loaded does it count as a view.  The totals shown in the geographical view may not represent all form views.  You will not get an accurate total from adding up the views in the geographical stats.