faking stats

[Bryon Stout]

Ever since the sale of shoutcast ive noticed some really odd numbers. Looks like some people are faking stats again.





17,000 yea ok buddy

[jaromanda]

these grapes are sour

[aron9forever]

825 mbps, it's possible, but unlikely

[DrO]

the top 10 stations have had potentially dubious numbers even before the transition and is something that will be re-looked onto (has been done in the past but nothing firm could be proved for most of them).

plus not everything on the back end has been rebuilt yet which stats handling is one off (most of it is there but there's a few little things not quite right which may not be helping).

so it is already known about and on the todo list, though with it all being a temporary site and the more part not working right, it could be causing more listener links going to the top few which will skew things for those ones. plus it doesn't help that the v1 DNAS is simple to hack to fool its reported numbers as has been confirmed on a few large stations previously...

[Jkey]

I encountered quite a few techniques, where nothing firm could be proved.
When they were combined, a listing at the top of the directory was the result.
The broadcasters discussing these "tricks", did not see anything wrong in
what they were doing.

While a ratings system based on listener counts exist, Every exploit that is closed,
will be replaced by a new one.

[Kigen]

There will always be ways to fake listener counts. But generally they rely on a single server or specific servers. So when a relay is setup for that station the relay won't see any or just very few listeners, even if its the top of the playlist on ShoutCast.com. Of course, a server could be getting the majority of its listeners through its own websites, but more often than not its just fake.

So a way ShoutCast.com could tell is by seeing how many attempted tune-ins vs listener count. If ShoutCast.com only sees a few attempts to tune-in but the server is reporting a very high or unrealistic listener count then it is most likely fake.

[DrO]

Jkey pretty much sums it up, whatever is done will always end up being circumvented. sure things can be done and there's a few things which can be to better ensure the validity of the information coming from the DNAS, but people will alter things and get around it (unless we start on a stricter banning regime than has been in place for a while).

and i'm fully aware that some station owners won't accept anything other than being at the top of any search result (even ones that aren't relevant to their station), but when everyone expects and tries to do that, some will fare better than others, but it sort of balances out things a bit. though it's more the listeners and the range of choice to them which is what i see as being impacted on the most and is what some of the changes made (like the single genre vs the mess of genre overloading which was in use prior to 2009) have been done as there's no point in having listings if the listeners are not able to find what they want.

so it's a weird balancing act in keeping stations and listeners happy when it comes to the Directory / API and it's never going to be 'right' due to the differing requirements of the two groups. though i've never understood some of the stations that want to have 1000s of listeners but aren't willing to deal with the costs that it involves, that's the biggest thing that has always concerned me about some of the station owners (more so from what i saw under the AOL setup).

[DJ-Garybaldy]

I've known quite a few station owners who have completely faked their listener figures.... It's nothing new!!


One case in point: A station owner was bragging on another forum about having 20,000 listeners a week. I monitered his shoutcast stats page for a week most I'd seen it peak at was 32. I'm sure he was getting stream hits and web hits mixed up!

Why do they feel the need to lie through their teeth as to how many listeners they have? It's not something that should be allowed to happen.

[Jkey]

Why do they feel the need to lie through their teeth as to how many listeners they have? It's not something that should be allowed to happen.

Do you have a ruler ? They and their rivals have an organ, whose size you can measure.

It is what it is .

[DrO]

is also so they can try to get more advertising money and the likes by having a larger claimed audience.

same as relying on the TTSL report (which is under review) to do such things (i've know a few stations who completely disagreed with it's output - which is just a guide and never claimed to be exact due to the faking going on - and they got very aggressive about it since they weren't in the top 20 or so when they deemed they should be.

[Bryon Stout]

I know its nothing new. For the longest time infowars was always at the top but now COOLfahrenheit with double of the normal large numbers.

Its annoying thats all. You should see the amount of freelance.com "wanted" ads there are for fake shoutcast stats.

[DrO]

Its annoying thats all.

that's the polite way of putting things and the YP connectivity issues aren't helping with what's being seen, but once things are stable, there will be a larger review of listings (like which has been done in the past to remove listings that were just pointless - too generic and obviously fake).

[Jkey]

is also so they can try to get more advertising money and the likes by having a larger claimed audience.

Advertising revenue, if done right, pays for organ extensions, a nice car for example.

[DrO]

like a BMW or an Audi maybe?

[tigerboy87]

faking is getting worse in shoutcast.com.... crazy.... whats going on with shoutcast.com ?
i have seen now few radios cheating stats