by By now, you’ve probably noticed the many apps and web services that claim to let you see who’s viewing your Facebook profile. Is your ex-college checking up on you, or is someone from work scrolling through pictures of your beach vacation? Do you see who you see on your Facebook profile with one of these apps?
Unfortunately, no. And if you come across these kinds of apps, Facebook not only denies that they work but also asks you to report them.
Can Third Party Apps Really Show Who Viewed Your Profile?
You can be 100 percent sure that every app that says “See who sees your profile!” or “Stalker Tracker” or anything else like that is virus-laden junk.
These apps want you to cough up your Facebook password, or they may have the ability to spam your Facebook friends. In some cases, malicious users can even use their junk apps to find your physical address [source: Stellin].
Again: Be extremely wary of any service or app that claims to show you who has been viewing your Facebook profile. This function violates Facebook’s privacy rules.
If you’ve fallen prey to a purported stalker app (or any other form of Facebook malware), be sure to check out Facebook’s instructions for detecting and removing malware.
That said, there are a few ways to get tips and insights on who’s floating around your profile. You probably won’t be on the final list you’ll need, but keep reading for tips and tricks – just don’t get cross! — that fine line between natural curiosity and egregious invasion of privacy.
Stat Trackers and Analyzers
First, it is important to understand the language. There is a big difference between Facebook pages, Facebook profiles and Facebook Stories.
Facebook stories
Facebook Stories was introduced in 2017 as the company’s way of tackling the massive popularity of Snapchat. Stories are collections of photos and videos from the last 24 hours, and after a day, they disappear automatically, in a manner reminiscent of Snapchat.
Users can see who has visited their Stories and even see which pieces of content each visitor has viewed. Story viewers, beware: We can see you.
Facebook Page Insights
Then there are pages. Let Mark Zuckerberg & Co. for business pages and fans to use different types of analysis that allow operators to monitor page traffic and see where it came from. Profiles, which are intended to simply serve social functions, do not.
Facebook Insights is the easiest way to get a handle on your business or fan page traffic. Among other metrics, Insights tells users how many people like their page, how many people see a post and how many people click on the post.
It’s already in the Facebook app directory, so just search for it within Facebook, and you can install it with a few clicks. The problem, for those who want to stalk, is that the company has implemented some limitations that are intended to make it more difficult to determine exactly who is viewing and clicking on your page and clicking on your jobs.
For example, Facebook Page Insights is only available for pages with more than 30 likes and only provides demographic information when a visitor from the demographic has visited the page or the posting. The information provided is also delayed by 48 hours, which means you can’t use it to find out who is viewing your page, say Now.
Basic Third Party Analytics for Your Facebook Page
If you want more full-featured analytics for your Facebook page, you’ll need to get creative. One place to go to analyze it is data monitoring sites like Webtrends.
Simply set up an account, and Webtrends will return a detailed analysis of the number and type of people viewing your Facebook page.
With a little finagling, you can also install the gold standard of Web tracking services, Google Analytics. This bad boy allows users to obtain finite data, such as date, time and location, about visitors to their pages.
But you won’t be able to identify an individual viewing your page, since IP addresses – which are as close as you can get to a user ID number – change all the time. So it’s unlikely that the person you’re looking for will have the same address every time they view your Facebook stories.
First set up a Google Analytics account, and then add a new profile to your Facebook page. This requires several steps to integrate Google Analytics with the given page. The good news is that Google has been kind enough to provide detailed instructions for doing so, as well as using tracking services on other social networks like X (formerly known as Twitter).
Driving Engagement With Your Facebook Profile
It’s not the most accurate method, but sometimes, if you’re willing to put in a little work, you can get a loose approximation of the people who could be looking at your profile. The simple trick is to post more intentionally to encourage engagement.
Say you came across an interesting scientific discovery or an exciting news story; the kind of thing that’s all over the internet, every day. It can be a neutral but interesting post, or it can be a little more provocative.
Wait a little while, and then see who is watching. Chances are, if they’re someone who doesn’t watch your stories all the time, they might have checked out your profile too.
Originality is one of the most valuable commodities on the internet, so an interesting Facebook story has a better chance of getting visitors to your profile than a run-of-the-mill photo or video.
Analyzing Facebook Apps
Developers know there’s a market for Facebook apps that let you see who’s viewing your profile. And they also know that Facebook has strict privacy rules to prevent it. So many developers toe this line, which brings you up to the edge something like real knowledge.
Advanced Methods
Typing the word “statistics” into the Facebook app directory returns a long list of traffic tracking apps, like Facebook Insights. Most of them are not so good.
But you’ll find a rotating and ever-growing list of gems that do things like mine your posts for the words you use the most. Be sure to keep one important point in mind: These apps also mine your profile for interaction.
When someone “likes” a post of yours or interacts with your profile, these apps know, and may be able to build models of your most active friends. But if there’s an ex-boyfriend lurking around your profile, there’s no way to tell, so don’t believe the apps that tell you otherwise.
Rest assured that app developers are always looking to Facebook for workarounds that take you beyond Facebook’s privacy rules, and every once in a while a developer finds a breakthrough. Generally, when this happens, an app has a ticking lifespan that returns interesting information about your profile views, which ends when Facebook finds out and shuts it down.
The Story of the Breakout Announcement
For example, take Breakup Notifier, which claims, “You like someone. They’re in a relationship. Be the first to know when they break up.” The app worked by mining the relationship status of your friends.
In 36 hours, it attracted 700,000 visits and more than 3.6 million users [sources: Heussner, Tsotsis]. And then, poof, it was gone within a week, crushed like a grape under the stiletto heels of Facebook, which blocked the app.
If you keep your eyes peeled, you might come across the next banned app before it gets banned. Until then, learn to live with the fact – definitively, finally and with an exclamation point – you can’t see who is stalking you on Facebook, and that’s the final word straight from Zuckerberg’s team.
Lots More Information
Author’s Note: How Who Sees Your Facebook Profile
Call us crazy, but let’s go out on a limb and say that at least some of the people who go to Google looking for information about how to find out who viewed a particular Facebook page aren’t doing so because they want to it. They know who is “stalking” them, but because they want to be able to “stalk” others on the social network with impunity.
Although some have speculated that with frequent profile visits your name will appear more often in the user’s “Find Friends” section and that you will be more likely to appear in the search toolbar if the person types in first few letters of your name, these claims have never been proven.
Related Articles
Sources
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Cheng, Jacqui. “Those ‘Stalker apps’ of Facebook? They don’t work, so avoid them.” Ars Technica. January 2011. (July 16, 2011) http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/01/those-facebook-stalker-apps-they-dont-work-so-avoid-them.ars
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Cluley, Graham. “Want to see who viewed your Facebook profile? Be careful.” Naked security. July 23, 2010. (July 16, 2011) http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/07/23/viewed-facebook-profile-care/
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Facebook. msgstr “About Page Insights.” (October 27, 2013) https://www.facebook.com/help/www/336893449723054?rdrhc
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Google developers. msgstr “Social Interactions – Web Tracking.” (October 27, 2013) https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/gaTrackingSocial
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Heussner, Ki Mae. “Facebook Breaks App Ads Helps You Stall Your Crush.” ABC news. February 22, 2011. (July 16, 2011) http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/facebook-breakup-notifier-app-helps-stalk-crush/story?id=12971622
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Kelly, Heather. “How to Use Facebook Stories.” CNN. April 3, 2017. (February 15, 2018). http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/03/technology/facebook-stories-how-to/index.html
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Stelin, Susan. “Avoid This Scam: Who Viewed Your Facebook Profile?” Really Simple. (February 15, 2018). https://www.realsimple.com/work-life/life-strategies/avoid-the-scam-who-viewed-your-facebook-profile
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Sulleyman, Atif. “Facebook Stories Let Users See Who’s Stalking You.” The Independent. 6 April 2017. (15 February 2018) http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-stories-stalking-see-harder-follow-people-dl -exes-partners-a7669776.html
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Sóis, Alexia. “Crush-Stalking App Breach Ad Meets Over 3.6M Users, Facebook Shuts It Down.” Techcrunch. February 23, 2011. (February 15, 2018) https://techcrunch.com/2011/02/23/breakup-notifier/
Basic: Can You See Who Viewed Your Facebook Profile?
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