Is there any way to increase/decrease number of views on threads and announcements?
 

Just like the title says;

Is there an EASY way to increase/decrease number of views on threads and announcements? Like editing some file or something. Easy way means that someone who doesn't know anything about coding etc. can do it. I can follow instructions if they are not too complex.

Why would you want to do something like that?

I don't think this can be easily done, as any time you did maintenance, or the cron ran, it would reset the views to what they are supposed to be.

I was particularly interested in increasing the number of views. Why? To make a thread look very important/hot/popular.

One way I know how to do is use one of those website hits sites and put the thread URL there. I have tried it and it does work, but it messes up the bounce rate on Google Analytics.

Can you think of any other way that I can use to artificially increase the number of views?

If your familiar using phpmyadmin, you can change the numbers for the views in the DB in the thread table.

Make sure you do a full backup before messing around. :)

But you if I do that anytime a maintenance job is run, the views would go back to what they are supposed to be.

I am not familiar with using phpmyadmin but I can follow instructions.

No I think it will be ok.

So lets do this. Take a backup first, then you can execute this query in the ACP.

XXX will be the amount of views you want, and Y will be the thread id to change the view count.