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Quantcast Query for WordPress.com

  1. boles
    Member

    I have seen Quantcast discussed here in the support forum:

    http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/how-to-paste-tracking-code?replies=6#post-1165976

    http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/serious-problem-with-happiness-engineer-response?replies=19#post-1143204

    http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/why-have-i-not-recieved-any-stats-for-the-past-two-days?replies=3#post-1132797

    http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/desktop-vs-mobile?replies=3#post-1155049

    On http://BolesBlogs.net -- a Pro-level WP.com paid blog that is, and always has been, private -- I see this public information on the Quantcast site:

    https://www.quantcast.com/bolesblogs.net

    On my newer, public, http://BolesBlogs.com Business-level paid WP.com blog, I see no public data available:

    https://www.quantcast.com/bolesblogs.com

    I checked the HTML of for both blogs, and I see the Quantcast code.

    I decided to write to Quantcast, as some have recommended in the above support threads, to try to get the full report. Here is their response:

    Thank You for contacting Quantcast!

    I QAed your website and it looks like the WordPress pixel is firing. However, if you want data to collect under your own Quantcast account for your websites, you must implement your own pixel. Your unique P-code is [redacted] (as seen once you log into your account). If you have access to changing your HTML please review the following instructions to insert our tag:

    If you’re using Joomla, Drupal, or the WordPress Platform (as opposed to WordPress Hosted) as a Content Management System then you must have access to the files being hosted by your web-hosting provider.

    The easiest way to become Quantified is to place your Quantcast tag in a common file that is loaded on every page, such as a footer. For most implementations of the three CMS listed above, common files are usually in the ‘Themes’ folder and are labeled something like ‘footer.php’, ‘index.php’ and so forth. Simply open the file on your computer, add your Quantcast code at the bottom of the file, and re-save the file to your web-host.

    At that point, you can login to your Quantcast account submit your site to be scanned in.

    I know we cannot load our own pixel, so my question is this: Is the Quantcast pixel that WP.com currently loads for us, Automattic proprietary information, or does it belong to us as blog owners as well?

    If the pixel is proprietary, why are people able to see public results on the Quantcast site?

    If the pixel is public, why is Quantcast telling me I have to have my own pixel in order to see their results?

    Finally, no matter what the answer to the above two questions -- why are the stats for a private blog publicly visible on the Quantcast website?

    The blog I need help with is bolesblogs.com.

  2. boles
    Member

    UPDATE:

    I wrote an article about this and included screenshots in case that helps:

    http://bolesblogs.com/2013/02/28/quantcast-proprietary-pixel-query-for-wordpress-com/

  3. macmanx
    Happiness Engineer

    It's actually pretty easy to setup. Fellow WordPress.com user (and awesome forum volunteer) timethief, I'm sure you've seen her around, wrote up a great bit on this at http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2011/05/14/blogging-metrics-getting-quantified/

    I'd pretty much be copying her with any answer, so I'll just quote her instead. :)

    Getting your blog quantified if it’s on a domain and being domain mapped by WordPress.com is not difficult. I have just done this myself for two domains. Click the “get quantified” link and you will receive an email from Quancast Staff. Reply and request your site(s) be quantified. Be sure to include both the “root” wordpress.com URL and the domain URL. It took a week for my blogs to be qualified and the data to be made public.

    As for the Private blog, the Quantcast pixel is actually part of our built-in stats system, as we use some of its data for that. It's not currently possible to disable this on Private blogs for that reason, but the data collected is entirely anonymous, and most people wouldn't bother tracking down the stats for a private blog anyway.

    I do believe that you can contact Quantcast to make that listing private as well, but you'll need to check with them to be sure.

  4. boles
    Member

    Hiya macmanx!

    I actually did all that -- contacted Quantcast and such and set up and account and requested they set up my blogs -- and their reply to my request is what I blockquoted -- that I have to embed my own pixel because the Automattic pixel is proprietary: "...if you want data to collect under your own Quantcast account for your websites, you must implement your own pixel."

  5. boles
    Member

    P.S. --

    The underlying wordpress.com blog -- urbsemiotic.wordpress.com -- for http://BolesBlogs.com is not collecting proper data either:

    https://www.quantcast.com/urbsemiotic.wordpress.com

    For the Boles Blogs domain, I get yellow alert that the information has been "restricted by owner" and I cannot add it -- even though I tried to yesterday and was rebuffed by Quantcast -- and I don't know what that means since I'm the owner. Or am I?

  6. macmanx
    Happiness Engineer

    Hm, I don't recall us changing anything like that, but I'm going to check and get back to you on this.

  7. boles
    Member

    Thanks, macmanx, I also asked Quantcast for clarification this morning, because it doesn't make sense I can see stats for my private blog domain, but not the public domain. We know their pixel is being read for both blogs because they confirmed that in their reply.

    I'll let you know if they get back to me.

  8. macmanx
    Happiness Engineer

    I haven't heard back from our stats team yet, but I did notice that another frequent forum volunteer mentioned that he had to bug Quantcast a few times before they actually did it right.

  9. auxclass
    Member

    You can request Quantcast to restrict who views your stats - not sure how that works but I saw the restriction on a couple of Spam blogs some time back - guess they did not want advertisers to see how little traffic they really had before their site was suspended - but you should be able to restrict viewing if you want

  10. boles
    Member

    I think that might be my next move, auxclass, thanks!

    I'll be curious to see Quantcast's next reply -- because if I don't own the WP.com Quantcast pixel that loads -- then why would they make anything public or private based on what I want? Can we even load two pixels and have them count and report apart from each other, or would they cancel each other out?

    Quantcast wants me to load my own pixel to verify ownership, which is currently impossible for us to prove on WP.com.

  11. auxclass
    Member

    Seems I had some sort of had to explain it more than once that I could not add code but that I was on WordPress.COM - just be persistent and you should get things working

  12. macmanx
    Happiness Engineer

    For what it's worth, auxclass is who I was referring to in my last reply. :)

  13. boles
    Member

    No reply yet from Quantcast.

    Did anything change on the WP.com backend with pixel ownership and Quantcast?

  14. macmanx
    Happiness Engineer

    No, I can definitely confirm that nothing has changed on our end. We're also looking into removing the pixel from Private blogs.

  15. boles
    Member

    Thanks for the update, macmanx!

    I think it is excellent there might be a way to hide the pixel for private blogs. I really don't care for my blog -- but I know a lot of people with private blogs would likely freak out at the mere suggestion that anything at all escapes into the public square.

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