Why Virtual Page Views?
Some page views collected by TownNews.com are considered "virtual" page views - where we use JavaScript to increment page views based on actions the user takes on the page.
For example, if a user clicks on the next arrow in an image gallery to view a new image, on many website it would traditionally refresh the entire page in order to count more page views and in order to load more ads.
But, reloading the page is slow and annoying for users, so the media industry trend has been to refresh the content, track an impression virtually, and then refresh ads virtually - all via JavaScript.
It is also available in many places in our new Flex templates (such as the article photo slideshow, the collection photo slideshow, and the paging gallery).
Guidelines for Virtual Page Views
TownNews.com has created some guidelines for our products to guide when we will count virtual page views:
1. The virtual page view must be triggered by a user action. So, an automated slideshow that changes every 5 seconds wouldn't trigger new virtual page views.
2. The user action has to reveal significant new content. We don't want to increment a new page view because the user clicked on the Facebook like button, or something like that. Though that's a user action, it doesn't reveal content.
