Hits and post popularity

The “Popular” tab on a channel page shows which posts got the most views, how far they outran the channel's regular post, what hooked readers, where the posts spread and what the most successful posts have in common. This article explains what “regular post”, “hit”, “flop” and “multiplier” mean and how every number on the tab is calculated.

The full methodology is on the page “How post popularity is calculated”.

Where to find it

The “Popular” tab is on the page of any channel, in the “More” menu next to the channel tabs. The direct address is https://max.datool.ru/channels/<channel address>/#popular. To see what the tab looks like with everything open, visit the demo channel (its data is made up).

Where the data comes from

We regularly read all public MAX channels and save their posts: the text, publication time, format (text, photo, video, link, repost), the ad mark, views and reactions broken down by emoji. We re-read views and reactions while a post is fresh, so the numbers on the tab are what the post has now.

What the tab does not include and why:

comments — we do not collect them;
forwards to private chats — MAX does not provide them;
hourly view history — MAX only provides the current number of views, so we estimate how a fresh post grows (see “View growth curve” below).

All times are Moscow time.

Period and chart step

The period is chosen at the top of the tab: 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, year, all time or custom dates. “All time” and custom dates are limited to the last 365 days: news channels have hundreds of thousands of posts over their whole history.

Period	Available to
7 days (opens by default)	everyone
30 days	after signing in (free)
90 days, year, all time	the channel owner and subscribers
Custom dates (calendar)	“Premium” and “Business” subscribers

Charts use a step that suits the period:

Period	Chart step
up to 31 days (7 and 30 days)	day
up to 183 days (90 days)	week, starting on Monday
longer (year, all time)	month

The first and last week or month may be incomplete — they are shown paler on the charts.

Key definitions

Mature post — a post older than 48 hours. A fresh post's views are still growing, so it is not included in the “regular post”.

Regular post — the median views of mature non-ad posts of the period: half of the posts got more, half got fewer. We use the median rather than the average because one viral post would lift the average a lot, while the median barely moves. If there are no mature posts in the period (the last two days), the median is taken over all non-ad posts.

Example: a channel published 7 posts in a week with 900, 1,000, 1,100, 1,200, 1,300, 1,500 and 40,000 views. The average is about 6,700, although only one post was read that much. The median is 1,200 — that is the channel's regular post.

Multiplier (×) — how many times more views a post got than a regular one: the post's views ÷ the regular post. ×2 — twice as many, ×0.5 — half as many.

For a fresh post it is fairer to compare with a regular post of the same age: a post that is 3 hours old could not yet have got as many views as one gets in two days. So for a fresh post: views ÷ (regular post × the share that the channel's posts usually reach by that age).

Hit — a non-ad post with a multiplier of ×1.5 or more (one and a half times the regular post). Flop — a mature non-ad post that got 1.5 times less than the regular post (a multiplier of ×0.67 or less). The thresholds are symmetrical: a hit is as many times above the regular post as a flop is below it. Ads are never hits or flops: they have a fate of their own (they are shown by agreement, not because people liked them).

Example: the channel's regular post gets 2,000 views. A non-ad post with 3,000 views or more is a hit; a mature post with 1,333 views or fewer is a flop.

Two refinements keep hits from being a matter of chance:

A fresh post can become a hit no earlier than 12 hours after publication. In the first hours a post has only a tiny share of its views, and an estimate “against a regular post of the same age” is too rough. By 12 hours a post usually has about 85% of its views.
A small channel. If a regular post gets fewer than 50 views, the gap is calculated as if it got 50: a hit must get at least 25 views more than the regular post, a flop at least 17 fewer. Otherwise, with a regular post at 20 views, a post with 30 would become a “hit” — and that is random fluctuation, not success.

There may be no hits at all

The thresholds are relative to the channel itself. So a channel with very even views (for example, large news feeds where almost every post gets the same) may have no hits at all — that is an honest result, not a bug. Most MAX channels rarely have hits: usually less than 1% of posts.

ER (engagement rate) — reactions ÷ views × 100%. Only posts whose reactions we have read are counted.

Top 10% — the share of all views of the period taken by the tenth of the most viewed posts (at least one post). 10–25% means views are spread evenly; 35% or more means the channel relies on a few hits.

Regular post reach — the regular post ÷ the number of subscribers. It can exceed 100%: people who are not subscribed see the post too (via reposts, search, links).

Reaction moods — emoji are grouped into moods the same way as on the “Subscriber engagement” tab: approval (👍 🔥 ❤️ …), laughter (😂 🤣 …), surprise (😱 🤔 …), sympathy (🙏 😢 …), negative (😡 👎 …) and “other”.

View growth curve

MAX does not provide hourly view history, so we work out how quickly the channel's posts gain views from a “cross-section”: we take the channel's posts of different ages from the last 7 days and compare the median views of posts of each age (under 1 h, 1–2 h, 2–4 h, 4–8 h, 8–12 h, 12–18 h, 18–24 h, 24–36 h, 36–48 h) with the median of posts older than two days. The result is the share of final views a post of the channel usually has by each age.

If there are fewer than three posts of some age, we use a typical MAX curve (in the first 6–7 hours a post gets about 60% of what it will get in two days). The curve never goes down and never exceeds 100%.

Example: if the channel's posts usually have 60% of their total by 6 hours, and a fresh post has 1,500 views at 6 hours, the forecast for 48 hours is 1,500 ÷ 0.6 = 2,500.

Blocks of the tab

The blocks are listed in the order they appear on the page. The names are as on the site; above each title there is a small section label (“Popularity”, “Ranking”, “Post No. 1” and so on).

Key numbers

Six tiles:

Tile	What it shows
Regular post	the median views of mature non-ad posts
Best post	the most viewed non-ad post of the period
Hits	the number of hits and their share of all posts
Top 10% of posts	the share of views taken by the 10% most viewed posts
ER	the engagement of the period's posts
Regular post reach	the regular post ÷ subscribers

Below each number — its value in the previous period of the same length (30 days — against the 30 days before them) and a change badge. If the number moved by less than 1% of the previous value, the badge says “≈ same as before”. A growing top 10% share is neither good nor bad — its badge is grey. Reach is not compared with the previous period: the subscriber count for that time may be missing. The number of hits is compared per day on average — the current period is not over yet.

All tiles have the same kind of mini chart — the same number by day, week or month. For fresh posts, the regular post chart uses an estimate of their final views from the growth curve; otherwise the last days would always “sink”. Such a point is drawn with a dashed line. Reach on the chart is relative to subscribers at the end of each day (week, month).

Popularity at a glance

The same numbers in three sentences — for those who prefer reading to looking at tiles.

Key numbers: now and before

A table: this period, the previous period of the same length and the change. Shares (hits, top 10%, ER) are compared in percentage points: if the hit share was 2% and became 3%, that is +1 pp.

What hooked readers and where it spread

Post No. 1 — the most viewed non-ad post of the period. On the left — its reactions by mood next to the channel's usual mix of reactions for the period (all non-ad posts with read reactions) and the three most frequent emoji. On the right — which public channels reposted it and how many views these reposts got in their feeds. Only public channels are counted.

Every post is a square

The hits and flops block. Every post is a square in publication order, from left to right: green — hit, red — flop, grey — regular. Mature non-ad posts are rated, plus fresh posts that have already become hits (no earlier than 12 hours after publication). “Every Nth post is a hit” = the number of rated posts ÷ the number of hits.

There are no more than 1,000 squares — for a long period the latest 1,000 posts are shown, while the numbers cover the whole period. If fewer than 10 posts can be rated, the block is not shown.

Every day is a stack of posts

A column is a day (week, month), squares are posts from bottom to top in publication order. The number above a column is how many posts it has. Colours: hit, above regular (from ×1), below regular, flop, ad; a dashed border marks a post younger than 48 hours whose views are still growing. Hover over a square to see the post. If at least one column has more than 24 posts, all columns are drawn as bars of colour shares (the height is the number of posts).

What they will get by 48 hours

The “Gaining now” block. Posts younger than 48 hours (no ads), up to 10 of the strongest by multiplier against a regular post of the same age. The forecast for 48 hours = views now ÷ the share that the channel's posts usually reach by that age (the growth curve).

Row colour:

Colour	When
on track for a hit	the forecast reaches the hit threshold
above usual	the forecast is ×1.2 of the regular post or more
as usual	from ×0.8 to ×1.2
below usual	under ×0.8

This is an estimate, not a promise: a post may take off thanks to reposts or fade faster.

Channel formats in numbers

For each format (no ads): how many posts and what share, the format's regular post (median views of mature posts), the multiplier against the channel's regular post, ER (median), hits and the best post. Ads are a separate row, the whole channel is at the bottom. Formats with fewer than 5 posts are dimmed: conclusions about them are unreliable.

Posts by reaction mood

For each mood — five posts where it takes the largest share of the post's reactions (not simply the largest count). Only non-ad posts with at least as many reactions as the channel's regular post (median reactions of mature posts) are taken — otherwise a post with two reactions would come first. Below the list — the share this mood usually takes for the channel.

When a post more often becomes a hit

The “Hit recipe”. Mature non-ad posts are split into groups:

time of day: morning 06–10, midday 10–14, afternoon 14–18, evening 18–22, night 22–06;
day of the week;
format;
text length: under 200, 200–500, 500–1,000, over 1,000 characters.

For each group — the share of hits.

“More hits” — a group has at least 10 posts and 3 hits, and its hit share is 1.5 times the channel average or more.
“Fewer hits” — a group has at least 20 posts, and its hit share is half the average or less (up to four such conditions are shown).

If the period has fewer than three hits, the block is not shown. This is an observation of a single channel: the more posts in a group, the more reliable the conclusion.

Post topics

Posts are not yet labelled by topic, so a topic is a frequent word at the beginning of a post's text (the first 200 characters; for a large channel — over the latest 3,000 non-ad posts of the period). How we find the words:

words of 4 letters or more, “ё” = “е”, function words (prepositions, pronouns, “сообщил” (reported), “фото” (photo), “видео” (video), “сегодня” (today), months, weekdays and so on) are not counted;
different forms of a word are merged by stem: we cut off a common ending and take the first 6 letters; the most frequent form is shown;
a topic is a word that appears in at least 8 posts and 1% of the sample, but in no more than 40% of posts (such a word is a signature or the channel's name);
if almost all posts with a word (75% or more) already belong to another topic, it is the same topic in other words: it is shown in small type under it (“companion words”).

Up to 12 topics are shown. For each: posts, the topic's regular post, the multiplier against the channel's regular post (from ×1.15 — green, ×0.87 or less — red), hits, ER, the mood people react with most often and the best post. Topics with fewer than 10 posts are dimmed. At least 30 posts with text and two topics are needed.

Who reposts the channel most often

Public channels that reposted this channel's posts during the period, by number of reposts, and the latest repost of each. Self-reposts (the channel reposting itself) are not counted; MAX does not provide forwards to private chats.

Best post of each month

A column is the views of the best non-ad post of the month (for 90 days — of the week, for 7 and 30 days — of the day; the block title changes accordingly: “Best post of every week”, “Best post of every day”). The line inside a column is the regular post of the same month (the median of its non-ad posts). The tallest column is the period's record. Incomplete months (weeks) at the edges and today are paler: they have fewer posts or the views are still coming in. At least two steps with posts are needed.

Best post of every format

“Records”. The most viewed post of each format over the whole time we have tracked the channel (we search among the channel's 300 most viewed posts); ads do not take part. The three best formats get medals. Below each record — the format's best for the selected period and what share of the record it is; if the record was set in this period, it says so.

How many views a regular post gets

A comparison with similar channels. The channel and up to ten of the most similar ones (the selection of the “Similar channels” tab) over the last 30 days of the selected period: the regular post of each (median views of posts older than two days), the median of similar channels and reach (regular post ÷ subscribers). “N times higher” is written from ×1.6; a difference under 5% is “almost the same as the median of similar channels”. At least two similar channels with posts are needed.

What it means for you

Conclusions on three tabs — “For subscribers”, “For advertisers”, “For the owner”. This is not AI, but rule-based sentences: each takes the numbers of one block and is shown only if that block is open to you, and only when there is enough data in the group (usually from 10 posts). The main rules:

Conclusion	When we show it
Good / low reach	the regular post is seen by 15% or more / under 8% of subscribers
The bar holds / rises / falls	the regular post changed by less than 3% / 3% or more / 10% or more
Often “takes off” / regularly / hits are rare	hits make up 5% or more / 2% or more / under 2% of posts
Steady / relies on hits	the top 10% of posts take up to 25% / 35% or more of views
Many flops	flops make up 15% or more (few — up to 5%)
A format works better	the format gets ×1.3 or more against the regular post (weak — ×0.8 or less)
Best time / day	1.5 times more hits than average at a time of day or on a weekday
No point posting at night	posts after 22:00 get under ×0.9 and less than half the average share of hits
Short posts work better	a length group gets ×1.2 or more
Ads are read like regular posts / worse	an ad post gets ×0.9 or more / ×0.8 or less; ad ER half as high — separately
Many / few ads	ads make up 20% or more / up to 10% of posts
Negative reactions	negative takes 25% of reactions or more (calm — up to 10%)
Close to the record	post No. 1 got 50% of the channel's record or more
A streak of hits	hits on 3 days in a row or more
Posts spread across MAX	3 or more reposts to other channels
Fresh posts on the rise	at least 3 fresh posts, the best one on track for ×1.5 or more
Against similar channels	3 or more similar channels; the regular post ×1.25 or more / ×0.8 or less of the median of similar channels, reach ±10%
How the regular post changed by month	at least 3 full months in the period

Who sees what

Block	Guest	After signing in (free)	Channel owner	“Premium” and “Business”
Key numbers: regular post, best post, hits, ER	✓	✓	✓	✓
Key numbers: top 10% of posts, regular post reach	—	✓	✓	✓
Top posts: places 1–5 by views	✓	✓	✓	✓
Top posts: places 6–10 and sorting by reactions, ER and multiplier	—	✓	✓	✓
What hooked readers and where it spread (post No. 1)	✓	✓	✓	✓
Popularity at a glance, Now and before, Every post is a square, Every day is a stack of posts, Gaining now	—	✓	✓	✓
Channel formats in numbers, Posts by reaction mood, Best post of each month, Best post of every format, What it means for you	—	✓	✓	✓
When a post more often becomes a hit, Post topics, Who reposts the channel most often, How many views a regular post gets (against similar channels)	—	—	—	✓

A closed block is shown as a blurred copy on made-up data with the “Available after signing in” or “Available with a subscription” badge: this shows what will appear after signing in or subscribing, and the closed block contains no data of this channel. What the subscriptions include — see “Plans”.