"X's new link experiment on iOS may be artificially inflating traffic. Websites like Substack and Bluesky noticed a sharp increase in "fake" views following the update, something that Nick Eubanks, the VP of owned media at the digital marketing platform Semrush, attributes to a new behavior that preloads content before users click on it. "What's happening here is a classic case of metrics distortion caused by product experimentation at the platform layer," Eubanks tells The Verge."
"With the new experiment, X will collapse a post when you click on its link, allowing you to interact with the like, repost, reply, and bookmark buttons while viewing the webpage. Previously, when X's in-app browser opened a link in a post, the loaded page blocked the X post entirely, impacting engagement with the original X content. "X's new browser is pre-loading link content in the background, meaning the system fetches the destination page before a human actually taps or views it," Euba"
X's iOS link experiment preloads and partially displays linked webpages inside the app while keeping the original post visible and interactive. The in-app browser now collapses posts on click so users can like, repost, reply, and bookmark without leaving the destination page. The background preloading fetches destination pages before users intentionally tap links, producing page views that look like real traffic. Publishers such as Substack and Bluesky have reported sharp increases in apparent views that may be artificial. Metrics distortion from this behavior complicates web analytics and engagement measurement for publishers and digital marketers.
Read at The Verge
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