Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other platforms do not share their algorithms for click counting, so unfortunately nobody knows for sure exactly how they report their clicks. But we're happy to share how we count ours.
It is common for our customers to compare the clicks received from various sites and social networks to the clicks reported in BL.INK. The numbers from Facebook and Twitter could be higher or lower than what is reported in BL.INK.
We have seen promoted tweets with much higher numbers than BL.INK and normal tweets with fewer numbers.
Each analytics platform tracks and counts clicks differently. For example, Facebook counts a "click" as any type of engagement (clicks, hover, like, profile view, etc.). Therefore, a "click" between Facebook and BL.INK isn't really an apples-to-apples comparison.
How does BL.INK track clicks?
BL.INK stats are unfiltered and we report every click that is received - with four exceptions (see below).
We do not limit clicks based on unique clicks (though we do break down unique and total clicks for each individual link), application clicks, etc.
The raw details are reported at the bottom of the individual link page so users can see the hostnames of each click.
Click Exceptions
The following types of traffic are removed to provide a clearer picture of human-generated stats:
1. Systems that self-identify as a "bot" (ex: googlebot)
2. IPs added to the Blocked IP list will be removed from stats
3. Preview/Pre-fetch clicks identified through HTTP headers
4. Clicks originating from known and published data center IP blocks (ie, AWS)
All other click traffic will be visible through click Analytics.
Many of our customers use the BL.INK Analytics as a baseline to measure effectiveness on "common ground" across the various sites.
Since Facebook and Twitter both use different methods for counting clicks, it is hard to get a sense of how they truly compare to one another. When using BL.INK for both sites, while our numbers will be different from their numbers, you can measure Facebook versus Twitter clicks within BL.INK with greater equality.
Need more explanation or have specific questions? We're here to help.