Archive of Our Own & Hits

On Archive of Our Own, each fanwork shows the "hits" it has received, tracked using a hit counter.
AO3 defines hits as: "the number of times your work has been accessed." 
==Fanworks with the Most Hits==
As of January 7, 2021, the top ten fanworks by hit count on the archive are:Found via the Works Search function on 7 January 2021.
* 调教 by xianyuxiangu (Original Work)
*【忘羡】蓝湛，我不仅要枕腿……我……还要你。 by taoshengLAM (MDZS)
* 狱门调教（1——4） by Saviel (Attack on Titan)
*【大薛】产卵器（肉） by Mizutsuki (Dà Qiān Shì Jiè/RPF)
* [EC]Cut（黑帮教父E/演员C） by Yingzhen (X-Men: First Class)
* Yesterday Upon The Stair by PitViperOfDoom (My Hero Academia)
*【忘羡】来呀相互伤害呀（全文＋番外） by kehsin384 (MDZS)
* 嗜爱正文+番外一~六 by kimiyu08 (Ashes of Love)
*【贺红】饲狼[ABO]（三十一）（肉慎）（和谐部分） by Andrewrain (19 Days)
* In Another Life by LittleLuxray (Haikyuu!!)
Mandarin language works make up many of the top ten by hit count, but not by kudos. (It appears that cfandom readers are less likely to leave kudos or comments on AO3, but they may be talking to the author on other platforms., reblogged by fineillsignup, 8 March 2020. (Accessed 29 August 2021.)) Although only 4.6% of AO3 fanworks are in Mandarin324481 out of 7029259 works, based on the works search, 7 January 2021., fans have pointed out that worldwide there are many more Mandarin speakers than English speakers, resulting in a larger potential readership.
==What Counts as a Hit?==
According to AO3:
This means that bots from search engines or web-crawling services will count as hits. A single user rereading a fic after other users have accessed it will count as multiple hits. People clicking on a fic to mark it for later will, when they open it to read later, count as multiple hits, as well as people opening it in a separate tab and reloading it at a later point (potentially multiple times). People who are linked directly to a later chapter of a fic will not count as hits, meaning users clicking on an update email to the latest chapter do not generate new hits. Users who collect one shots or drabbles together into one work will potentially miss some unique hits since people who are directly linked a fic on a later chapter are not counted as a hit (this might be changed in a future update).
==Effect on Fans==
Because of the way hits are counted on AO3, most of the time the hit count will represent way more views than there are actual readers, or even actual times its been read. This has caused controversy over using comments/hits ratios as a measure of how often readers leave feedback. Additionally, while some people use kudos/hits ratios to judge how good or successful a story is (whether on their own works or by using a browser extensionMin. AO3: Kudos/hits ratio, Greasyfork, 19 November 2017. (Accessed 18 February 2018.)hujgup. AO3 TrueRank, Chrome Web Store, 10 May 2016. (Accessed 18 February 2018.) to sort works by them), others decry it as inaccurate and harmful to an author's mindset.
==Opting Out==
AO3 provides some options that allow you to opt out of hit counts.
===Preference===
In a user's Preferences under Statistics, there used to be three options (explained by the blue question mark): Don't show me any hit counts, don't show me hits on my works, and don't show other people hits on my works. (The first two also hide the hits section of your Statistics page.)
The option to hide hit counts was removed in April 2020."The hit count preferences hadn't been working properly for many years, so we removed them." Previously, it had been listed on AO3's Known Issues page: "We've had user reports of hit counters showing up even though the user had selected not to see them. We're looking into possible reasons, such as caching weirdness." 
===Site Skins===
It's possible to hide all hit counts from yourself as a logged-in user by making a site skins on AO3 with the following code:
.wrapper .hits {display: none;} ul.sorting li:nth-of-type(3) {display: none;}
However, other users will still be able to see the hits on your works.
==Fan Discussion==
===Hits Are Inaccurate===
Responses on a Tumblr post:
Tumblr user longlivefeedback also made a post in February 2018 aimed at clarifying the differences between hits, visits, and readers, and why the hit count of a fic on AO3 could be inaccurate for estimating the number of readers. It concludes with:
===Kudos/Hits Ratio===
====Author Perspectives====
Responses to that post:
====Reader Perspectives====
SputTop posted Choosing good stories on AO3. Comments, bookmarks or hits? at :/r/fanfiction on 2 January 2016. One response:
Anonymous asked ao3commentoftheday "What would you say the average kudos-to-hit ratio is, in your experience?" In response:
Refer to #Hits Are Inaccurate for more perspectives on its lack of use as a metric for how good a work is.
==Links to Meta/Further Reading==
==References==
Category:Discussion
Category:Archive_of_Our_Own