Looking at the top posts right now there are at least 5 posts with over 1k views.
Most of them say they have been answered/modified in about less than an hour so I don't think they are old. How do these front page posts have that many views?
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Never rule out 'Clickbait' questions with titles like: "Why does Windows think that my wireless keyboard is a toaster?"– RobotnikCommented Sep 16, 2016 at 21:50
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3 Answers
A lot of our traffic is from search engines. Questions about common problems will show up in search results, and Internet passersby will see them and hopefully find a good solution.
That said, most new questions don't get that kind of attention quickly. A lot of the posts you're seeing on the front page, though modified or answered recently, were created a good long while ago. Edits to a question or any of its answers, or the addition of a new answer, all "bump" the question onto the front page.
To see only questions posted recently, use the "newest" tab on the Questions page. At the moment, none of the questions there have more than a handful of views.
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There is also the "Know someone who can answer? Share a link to this question via email, twitter, facebook, or linkedin." at the bottom of unanswered questions. That can also drive up page views, sometimes by very large numbers (twitter in particular).– DavidPostill ModCommented Aug 23, 2016 at 23:01
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Ah ok did not even notice those until you pointed them out. You are right looks like I was browsing the top questions which is why I was confused. Thanks for clarifying! Commented Aug 24, 2016 at 22:27
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Yeah, that's about right. Sometimes an official SE twitter will tweet about a question. There are sometimes questions that I search for that end up being the #1 link to a question that I answered.. Commented Aug 26, 2016 at 10:51
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@throwayusername yeah, it's useful to share them because there are three badges related to the action Commented Aug 26, 2016 at 10:54
There's no magic formula for it. A quick look suggests some of these questions are 2-3 years old, and of wide interest - which means people search for it. Sometimes questions get picked up by major websites -here's an example of it on lifehacker, and the massively viral serverfault rm -rf hoax. You might also get HNQ. That said these things are a little like winning a small price on the lottery. You shouldn't be relying on them.
At the end of the day, just ask the best questions you can, and not worry about views and popularity.
answered Aug 24, 2016 at 0:38
By asking a quality question that others find useful.
