Inflated view counts here, there, and everywhere

Summary: Last week proved one thing—we have a lot to learn. So many articles had high views for no discernible reason that it became pointless to exclude them. If any of you have ideas as to from whence these oddities emerged, please let us know, as we can always use new sources! Think of this then as our all view-spikes are created equal list; each given due prominence regardless of its creator or particular endowments.

Thankfully, this inclusive policy didn't affect the Top 10 much; to see the full effect you should check out the Top 25

For the week of June 30 to July 6, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Yahoo!	3,087,818	After becoming the most viewed Wikipedia article in over four months last week, its viewership actually increased this week, which has sent some alarm bells ringing that perhaps this site's page has been getting some artificial inflation. Purchasing Tumblr is all well and good, but it doesn't deserve this level of attention, surely.
2	Independence Day (United States)	1,169,967	A far more obvious object of interest for the week of July 4 (although technically American independence was declared on July 2nd, by which time the American Revolutionary War had already been going for more than a year, and not attained until February 3, 1783), the celebration of American independence is arguably the biggest summer festival in the English-speaking world (with the possible exception of Christmas in Australia).
3	Franz Kafka	1,027,411	The angsty German chronicler of authoritarian oppression, who essentially predicted the surreal horror of 20th century dictatorship, had both a Google Doodle and a main page appearance to celebrate his 130th birthday on July 3, leading to a massive spike in interest.
4	Arrow (TV series)	910,481	Why this TV series, which went off the air in May and won't return until October, would suddenly get a surge in views on July 1-2 is not clear.
5	Kendrick Lamar	885,387	Compton-born rapper whose album good kid, m.A.A.d city won two awards at the BET Awards on June 30.
6	Li Shizhen	733,104	The Chinese botanist and physician who wrote a comprehensive materia medica with nearly 1900 entries had a Google Doodle to celebrate his 495th birthday.
7	Chikako Watanabe	715,123	This Japanese singer has been a thorn in our side for weeks; her entry keeps spiking apparently at random. On any other list she'd be excluded but in this one, who's to argue?
8	Facebook	709,225	A perennially popular article.
9	Edward Snowden	658,578	The story of the international cause célèbre who blew the whistle on the NSA's domestic spying program becomes more gripping by the day. Denied a passport by the US government, he presumably remains trapped in Terminal E of Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport, possibly seeking asylum in Venezuela. Polls suggest Americans are still fairly divided on whether to treat this man as a hero or a traitor, which will only stimulate more debate and, likely, more Wikipedia views in future.
10	Amy Winehouse	626,641	An exhibition of the life and possessions of the tragically short-lived singer (and member of the 27 Club) went on display at the Jewish Museum London on July 3.

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10 July 2013 (all comments)

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This is a very interesting Signpost feature, thanks for writing it. NW (Talk) 17:26, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Can someone explain why this article has so much traffic. Thanks for your help. --DeansFA (talk) 20:03, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Melanie Maddison was a recurring high entry on WP:TOPRED for some time, so someone probably created an article for her (which is now deleted). I suspected the high view count comes from some sort of spam service the subject employed to improve her search engine results. The TOPRED list has seen similar results for things like 18K Gold Watch, Hollow Body Guitar, and New Jersey Wedding Photographer in the past.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 11:36, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thanks so much for your answer Milowent. --DeansFA (talk) 14:07, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Arrow (TV series), I can't see how this would cause a big jump, but WCCB changed its affiliation to The CW on July 1.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:38, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the Spike in interest with the Arrow had to do with it being listed in a list of most downloaded episodes from file-sharing services (I forget where exactly this list was). Then people (like me) where like - zuh? the Arrow? Really? That's one of the top downloaded shows? Really? And I imagine a number of them went to Wikipedia because they had no idea what this show was or why it would be so popular (I knew what it was, but I am still unsure as to why it is so popular) 173.61.149.213 (talk) 15:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In regards to Yahoo!, the company has been in the news quite a bit recently. I'd guess that people like me who thought that it had gone out of business ages ago are Googling it and the Wikipedia article is one of the top results. Nick-D (talk) 23:15, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a great feature, always interesting to read, and the conversationalist tone used throughout complements the quirky nature of the subject matter. Please keep them coming! Daniel (talk) 00:23, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, Chikako Watanabe doesn't even have an entry on jp wiki? At least, no interwikis linked. If that's true, it's really weird. Another spam red flag? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 18:50, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]