# Badges / Popular Link **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [October 12, 2026, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badges-popular-link/1033795 "2026-10-12T21:58:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badges-popular-link/1033795/1 "2026-10-12T21:58:06Z")
I post the occasional link and get the ‘you’ve earned a badge for a popular link’ notification. When I click on it takes me to a page of all the past badges I’ve earned. But they don’t seem to be in any particular order. How do I tell which link was the one that got the last 50 clicks? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badges-popular-link/1033795/2 "2026-10-12T22:15:52Z")
Badges and links are different pages. The badges page (found under your profile summary page) lists your awarded badges in no obvious order. But there’s not many, so just scan down for “Popular link” and click that. That gives you a list of each link that you’ve posted that is popular = clicked 50 times. That list is in chrono order with the newest on top. So the first one in that list is the one you’ve been notified about. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badges-popular-link/1033795/3 "2026-10-12T22:50:59Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > That gives you a list of each link that you’ve posted that is popular = clicked 50 times. That list is in chrono order with the newest on top. So the first one in that list is the one you’ve been notified about. Got it. I just assumed (yeah, yeah, I know about assumptions…) since the newest one was a link I posted 6 months ago that they were out of order. _Now_ I see the dates. D’oh. Thanks ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badges-popular-link/1033795/4 "2026-10-12T23:25:09Z")
Fooled me the first time too. What’s curious to me is that suggests someone is reading a lot of our old posts. My most recent award was in early Aug, so 2-ish months ago. For a post I made in Mar 2023, 3-1/2 years ago. Which now has 52 clicks, so two more since the badge award. Who is reading our back catalog? Folks Googling for [whatever] and reading a thread on-point? I hope the system is smart enough to not credit us with link-follows when some search engine or AI crawls the site. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2026, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badges-popular-link/1033795/5 "2026-10-13T00:30:36Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I hope the system is smart enough to not credit us with link-follows when some search engine or AI crawls the site. I’ve assumed that is what is happening. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2026, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badges-popular-link/1033795/6 "2026-10-13T07:03:17Z")
Mine was four days ago for a link posted in Aug of 2021. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2026, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badges-popular-link/1033795/7 "2026-10-13T11:38:54Z")
I’d think not. Crawlers don’t work by clicking links in browsers. They slurp up the page text and read it on their server, cataloging any links into a queue to be crawled later / elsewhere. Discourse can only track that a link was followed if the script running in a browser on that Discourse page detects the click action and reports it back to Discourse. By and large when I follow a link I do that by Ctrl-click or Shift-click to open it in a separate tab or page respectively. Rather than a plain click that’d replace the Dope thread page with the target page in my current tab. IME doing those other forms of click did not increment the Discourse counter in the little bubble displayed after the link. Or at least did not do so consistently. I think that changed some time in the last couple of weeks and now Ctrl- or Shift-click seem to reliably increment the counter. Seem to. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2026, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badges-popular-link/1033795/8 "2026-10-13T12:30:05Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Mine was four days ago for a link posted in Aug of 2021. Two of my most recent went back to 2013 and 2011. ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2026, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badges-popular-link/1033795/9 "2026-10-13T18:16:18Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > IME doing those other forms of click did not increment the Discourse counter in the little bubble displayed after the link. I read this and happened to come across a link. I clicked it to open in a new tab, and it did not increment. Went back and clicked on it normally and it did increment. Learned something today, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2026, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badges-popular-link/1033795/10 "2026-10-13T18:17:41Z")
None of my “top links” are in posts newer than 2023. They were all posted between 2021-2023. But I guess it just takes time to accumulate a lot of clicks. I will note that my most “popular” link is from a long-running thread (started in 2021) that is still very much active; the most recent post is from 2 days ago.