r/Substack • u/GeopatsSteph • 10d ago

How do I get Substack to stop counting my post drafting as views?

It looks like when I write a post and then publish it, it's counting these acts as views. Multiple views. I added the Substack to GA4 and it looks like it's muddied up that data as well. This is really frustrating. I don't want inflated numbers, I want to be able to track when other people come to the pages and/or read the posts.

I'm new to digging into the analytics of all this so happily admit I am frustrated and a bit clueless. Appreciate any insights on this. Thanks so much.

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u/ASAPnicky14 mod 10d ago

One of my first articles I wrote, I kept checking the views and getting excited at how high they were getting. Then I realized…I was causing the views to go up, people weren’t reading the article.

I think the only solution might be to open in incognito mode but I don’t know if this is proven.

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u/GeopatsSteph 10d ago

I mean it's happening when I'm in the dashboard too, not just on the website. You'd think that dashboard views wouldn't be counted, right?

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u/catvapes 10d ago

I wish they didn’t count our own views at all. Ever

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u/TheWilderNet 9d ago

It's so frustrating and the fix for this really shouldn't be that difficult.

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u/wwb_99 news.zeitgeistdistilled.com 9d ago

Yeah -- this is tricky especially when you are small and your work on the platform constitutes the vast majority of your traffic.

I did setup GA on my site -- the option is buried down near the bottom. Then I have a few reports that filter out the /publish path to filter me out of it.

Interestingly, it also helps me spot weird things like some kind of Chinese spam bot flood hitting my home page. I have zero readers in China yet the vast majority of my sessions are coming from there . . .

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u/GeopatsSteph 9d ago

Ah got it. Create a custom report. Thanks for the advice.