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raincole
afavour
Yeah I think the author needs a dose of reality about how many users do anything on a site. Something that 1 in 476 visitors do isn't that bad. Especially when there's no real ongoing cost to doing so.
yndoendo
I didn't see any statement about normalizing the share click as bot or human.
With the continual passage of laws restricting social media for minors, URL copy and paste will become the standard methods for sharing.
Personally, I would never click the share button because sharing with a person or group of people is often through email, SMS, work chat, or here.
Businesses that use Facebook to communicate events are actively restricting their consumer base because not everyone wants to use it or will. A standard web-site is the only method to communicate openly with users.
deepsun
Especially on government websites like gov.uk serve. It's not a website with cute beanie hats you'd want to share on your socials.
echelon
Share buttons got a 5-7% CTR on the last social media project I built and were responsible for a huge number of inbound referrals. Lots of long tail SEO too.
If the trillion dollar tech companies have them, there's a reason.
AnthonyR
Yeah I find this article hilarious. Especially since maybe less than 1 in 10 visitors will actually want to share the article? So 1 in 476 is actually pretty decent usage.
bluebarbet
For which the other 475 get saddled with a bunch of extraneous downloads and invasive tracking.
vovavili
The cohort that is concerned about this almost certainly runs some sort of a blocker.
Grombobulous
It seems like the number isn't very useful unless we have a baseline for how often the site is shared at all.
If 0.2% of users share the site via a direct link, and 0.2% of your users share the site via a share button, for an overall share rate of 0.4%, that probably means the share button is worth keeping around.
yencabulator
If you assume the that half wouldn't also share it through it other means if needed. It'd need an A/B test.
For example, mobile Chrome has built-in share buttons, no copy-paste of URLs needed, no in-page button needed.
nkrisc
At that rate I think you can assume most clicks were accidental.
Aachen
You don't know my mother
Messages like "Hi I found this podcast episode, you should listen to it!", not fitting her usual or the chat's tone at all. The link goes to the last 19 seconds because she finished listening and the thing tries to be helpful (took me a minute, the first time, to realise she didn't actually mean to share the fragment at that timestamp). At least it matches her native language I guess, looking on the bright side (the message isn't actually in English)
A simple "copy link to episode" button would have been so much more helpful. Not just for me but also any recipients that are as tech-savvy as she is and don't understand why it doesn't show them the whole episode for example, or why it is she's implying it's so important (the template wording is just off because she didn't write it)
dlcarrier
I'm pretty confident that my accidental click rate is much higher than one in 476, especially on touch screens, although you'd need to divide that by the total number of links on the page, to get the probability of accidentally clicking on any specific link.
blitzar
> Visitors were twelve times more likely to click an advertisement.
I would have guessed clicking on ads was rare
dlcarrier
It depends on whether or not the page finishes loading, and rearranges everything, right as you're trying to click on a link.
jatora
I work in digital marketing and I am continually shocked by the amount of people that click my disgusting ads. (nearly all advertisements are morally disgusting)
blitzar
I will just naively assume that people do it accidentally or are tricked into clicking on that filth. Ignorance is bliss
ingvay7
Im always surprised when i see the significant opens in the promotions tab of the gmail inbox. Looks like a lot of folks want those ads.
swader999
And I wonder how many were bots
deadbabe
If you want to be a pedant, sure, you could say people do click it! But then you always have to speak in disclaimers and technicality, or you will give the wrong impression.
Most reasonable people will compare usage rate to some minimum effective threshold, under which you could basically say no one clicks the button. Even though that’s not technically true, it becomes a useful rule of thumb for how you should think about the button, and it’s easier to remember.
IMO if less than 5% of people are clicking the share button, then basically no one is clicking it.
Similarly, if more than 95% of people are clicking the button, then everyone clicks it!
raincole
> IMO if less than 5% of people are clicking the share button, then basically no one is clicking it.
It's a crazy take and honestly just lack of sense over numbers. 5% is really high for something that the users have to actively do, even it's just a single button.
MrBeast's videos have a like:view ratio less than 5%. Your take is saying that basically no one is clicking likes on MrBeast's videos.
helsinkiandrew
> In other words, people not only click share buttons, but do it quite often?
And thats for gov.uk sites - they're websites where you mostly go to do something rather than browse for interesting content. I'd guess social media, local news and sites with cat videos would get more shares.
joshstrange
0.21% sounds low but my initial thought is "I don't know if they are making the point they think they are". Conversion rates are always pretty low.
That said, I've never clicked on a share button mostly because:
- I don't know what it will do, it's not consistent at all
- It might add extra crap "Your friend shared 'Story Title' with you!"
- It will probably try/want to add tracking crap
I always just copy the URL and send it however I want to send it. People aren't stupid when it comes to sharing, they understand how to accomplish what they want, we don't need a dedicated share button.
What we don't have, and hopefully never will, is the number of people who click the share button verses the people that copy/paste the URL which I assume 90% of people who want to share do. It's universal, it "just works".
Clicking the share button means I'm at the mercy of the site operator, copying the URL puts me in control.
theturtletalks
Exactly but companies have started hijacking the copy icon button as well. You’d think that would just copy what’s in the text box, but they add tracking and other stuff.
The worst is the YouTube share button. You can share the button with the exact second mark in the video and I would do that. Then one time I noticed the URL was shortened and added a lot of tracking.
joshstrange
Nothing bugs me more than copy/pasting some text from an article and getting:
"Text that you copied"
- From XYZ Times (httx://abc123.tld/path/to/article)
I'm sure there are browser extensions to tame but this thankfully there aren't many website that do this that I care to visit often.
> Then one time I noticed the URL was shortened and added a lot of tracking.
Ugh, yeah, this is really annoying as well. When a dedicated share button is my only option (like in a mobile app) I often open an incognito/private browsers window and paste it in so I can get redirected and then rip off all the tracking crap. Back when I used TikTok I had an iOS shortcut that I would "share" to which would rip off all the tracking for me. I always would feel gross when someone "anonymous" would share a TikTok or similar link and there would be a banner at the top of the page "Real Name shared this with you, follow them?".
spockz
It’s even weirder now. When you share a video through the button (which is the only way in the app) and another person opens the link while logged in you will now be linked in YouTube and you can share “directly” to the other’s YouTube. …
theturtletalks
Google Maps share button is filled with tracking too, now I just copy the address and send it.
I fear it’s all futile because even if we are privacy focused, if our friends and families are sharing links like this, Google knows how all of us are connected to each other in the real world.
iknowstuff
I agree, I do the same thing, but e.g. my parents still don't understand copy&paste. For all of us who do, there's the other ~half (total guess) of people who don't, and will benefit from the share UI. It's sad but real.
> a 2023 peer-reviewed survey of 124 geriatric computer users, mean age about 80.6, found that 59% were unfamiliar with the copy/paste function. That is among older adults who were already computer users, so it probably understates the issue for all elderly people.
ndegruchy
I've added a button that just triggers `navigator.share()`[1]. I know most users do the copy-paste dance, but I find this is a good middle ground. Adding functionality for my users, but not adding special social media share buttons.
[1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/s...
input_sh
I thought about using navigator.share myself, but decided to go with the basic "Copy URL" button instead, as navigator.share is pretty useless on desktops and not supported across browsers on phones either (Android's Webview being the big one for my use case).
rickstanley
Why not both? A small button with "Copy link" text to, well, copy the current URL and another that calls "native" share, if available. I don't find it to be too many options, but I would guess that perhaps "Copy link" would have more clicks than `navigator.share`.
imoverclocked
You could switch between them depending on the browser. Desktop users are more likely to want an URL anyway, IMHO. FWIW: iOS has a "copy" option in the share popup.
siriusfeynman
Oh is this what that is, I saw a few sites use it recently but for whatever reason on my desktop pc (windows 10) the only options I have are copilot, another copilot (for some reason), one-note and discord, which claims to also be a copy to clipboard option but it doesn't work. So in the end for sites that don't show the raw string I have no way to copy something.
OptionOfT
I wish Apple would mandate this in their apps. Many apps open their own share-sheet and you need to tap another button to open the native one.
yieldcrv
navigator.share is limited and the share intent breaks UX, adding more clicks to a funnel than I want
I leave it as an option for the users that really want it though, but surface other things like just the copy icon to put something directly on the clipboard
the articles best stats are from 2012, I’m sorry to inform that was 14 years ago, people are even more acclimated to direct linking
broodbucket
I don't click share buttons because I don't know what it's going to do. I don't want something copied that says "Check out this Thing on this Site! <url>" because then I have to delete half of it at which point it's slower than copying the URL. If every share button had the same behaviour then maybe I would.
NikolaNovak
This. It may copy a url or it may automatically send me to my Facebook profile and prepopulate a post. Very rarely do share buttons copy a simple meaningful url to my clipboard.
filup
So true. I too dual as an automatic link cleaner.
When I receive a link with a 100 character hash attached I gasp and yell at the person who sent me it (my wife normally)
serial_dev
They put so much stuff into the URL, usually my user ID, my phone, browser info etc…
I don’t necessarily want the people I share the link with to know my potentially pseudonymous user.
jdw64
0.2 %is quite significant, isn't it? My small website (www.makonea.com) gets about 90,000 visitors a month on average. (That's about 300 per day?) So that means a post gets shared about once every two days. Maybe I should seriously consider making my posts more shareable. And if I promote it on HN, I'd hope there's a 0.2 %chance that people would check out my site.
6510
Imagine what buying high value visitors costs. 10 bucks is nothing to gain one person who is actually interested. At least 300 free money right there
kxrm
Reddit is full of YouTube links with the `si=` param which indicates they clicked the "Share" button. All indicators are this article's premise is not true.
preciousoo
The link sharing platform is full of people interested in sharing links, that makes sense, similar to how a mall would be full of people interested in shopping
ludwik
The article is about how people decide to share links, nie whether they share links at all.
evilturnip
Most people don't have an audience they would share it to if we're being honest.
If there's a article/site I'd be interested in sharing, it might be to a slack channel or a text message, in which case I just copy/paste the URL.
PaulHoule
Amen! Plus those share buttons leak data with third party cookies and such, they're mostly a scam to skim user data from your web site.
elpocko
I remember back when Wordle was popular, people said the "Share result" feature was so effective, it was the reason for the game's viral success. I can't think of any other example though.
smcin
Well, that combined with the expectation that the recipient would also try that daily challenge, then presumably respond with comment/message/reshare comparing how they did.
fmajid
Of course, but the real purpose for those buttons is to allow Google, Meta et al to build a marketing dossier of the websites you visit. Made a little less effective with cookie partitioning, but that's where browser fingerprinting kicks in.
Cynical exploitation of publishers who are desperate for any revenue stream or virality in a collapsing ad market.
andy_ppp
This is something Wordle got completely correct, it just allows you to copy an emoji version of your game into any social media you like. Giving people agency to edit rather than mild fear of how will sharing actually work is much more likely to work!
klinquist
Nobody clicks share buttons to "just share links"
But ... make it share something more useful and they might use it more.
I author a Caltrain app, and if you are viewing the time schedule, the share button pops up the iOS share sheet pre-filled with "I'm taking train XX leaving <location> at <time> and arriving at <location> at <time>. Track my train <link>."
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> The share buttons got clicked 14,078 times. That’s a 0.21% usage rate, which works out to about 1 in 476 visitors.
In other words, people not only click share buttons, but do it quite often?