Plugin Page
WordPress Stats Plugin
Plugin Mission
Add highly available, highly versatile statistics similar to WordPress.com to your WordPress.org hosted blog.
Plugin Vision (Features)
Wordpress.com has had a very nice statistics package for its users for some time. This plugin adds the same statistics to a WordPress hosted blog. Automattic does require that every user have a WordPress.com API key for the installation but it is very painless to get and the statistics generated are fantastic. There has been a lot of good press surrounding this plugin and Andy and the Automattic team have done a bang up job on it.
Lots of items are monitored by the statistics plugin and the usual suspects are available. You can access the statistics through your blog admin and the page redirects to a WordPress.com admin page where the stats are available. The main statistics page displays a flash graph of your daily visits for the past 30 days. Other items displayed in text include two days of statistics of the following:
- Referers
- Top Posts Viewed
- Search Engine Terms used to visit your blog
- Click throughs from your blog to the outside world
- Total Views, Best day Evar and todays’ views
- Incoming links from Google Blogsearch
Each of the items listed can be drilled down further with graphical statictics for each item. Don’t pass up this feature. It is very interesting to see how slowly the posts go out of favor or become obsolete. Some posts of mine are still popular after years or after a Google bomb of some kind. WordPress Stats FAQ states that statistics are updated every 3 minutes or so and it takes upto 20 minutes for the first stats to show up. Your own hits are not counted and your theme must have the default wp_footer function for things to work right.
My Thoughts
I have been using the plugin for some time and I love the features. The biggest benefit for me has been the load or the lack thereof. The plugin does not add any load to my servers and yet it is available from the backend of this blog without any muss or fuss. In addition, I like the click counting and the per page statistics. One other feature that people might overlook is that once you are logged in with the plugin enabled, your WordPress.com backend becomes your backend and vice versa. You can get to your own hosted blog’s admin right from any WordPress.com blog’s navigation bar. I am a sucker for stats and this plugin is just the ticket. The best part of the installing the plugin is the simplicity of installation and forwards compatibility for newer features that might be added.
As for a wishlist, I wish there was an API to tap into the statistics. I can only imagine the possibilities. Top Posts, Top Clickthroughs, Top Referers and so much more could be done if we only had some access to the data.
However, the service if free for most (I pay for Akismet) and is hassle free, comprehensive and will serve most WordPress bloggers quite well. Are there any features I missed or any benefit/advantage that you experience with this plugin that you would like to share? Are you using WordPress Stats?
PS: Thanks Andy!
I’m using it currently, and the only problem I’ve got with it is the keywords. It shows “Yesterday” twice, instead of Today and Yesterday, LOL
Giving it a try, but so far nothing beats a good local counter like SlimStats for me. The sheer amount of drill-down data makes it worth the huge MySQL file.
I gave it a try, but didn’t feel like the information I got was any better than the Google Analytics information. Also, since I already know where things are with Google Analytics, I didn’t feel WordPress Stats offered enough and so deactivated it shortly after playing with it. It seemed like the stats page should be viewable on my blog’s admin section and that I shouldn’t have to go to wordpress.com to view it.
Im agree with Ben M. WordPress Stats is too simple than Google Analytics have. Maybe if we can add it in our own host, it can be nicely
for me, it only works for my homepage, not the single pages… Did I do something wrong ?
I tried it but it gives me only the information for the homepage and not the single pages…Did I do something wrong ?
I would also like to be able to view the stats directly on my blog’s admin section. But I can live with the link back to my own blog from wordpress.com, because I quite like WordPress Stats. The amount of information offered is not as verbose as Google Analytics, so it’s easier for me to get the big picture, and if I then want further drill down of the statistics, I can always check Google Analytics.
i like Counterize II
-nod- @ ben m.
the stats are no better than what you get out of google analytics (especially with the tantan reports plugin).
and i’m not a fan of matt + co’s level of respect for my privacy.
I am a sucker for Statistics and have tried most ones on my blog. Honestly speaking WordPress stats although light on the servers, does not do a very good job. Infact, the statistics for top stories showed wrong consistently. I think currently the Best in market is slimstats followed by Google Analytics. I tried everything, but settled on these !
I have been waiting for this plugin for a long time! It’s exactly what I’ve always wanted. Props!
I wasn’t that impressed when I was using the wp stats package when I had a wp.com blog (in fact one of the reasons I left wp.com to host my own blog was the lack of in-depth stats), so it would take a lot of convincing for me to go back to it on my hosted blog. I have Google Analytics (and use Sitemeter and Mint) and I don’t see what WP stats offers over and above any of them, particularly Google Analytics.I know it’s free, but that’s not enough to sell me in this case. And, since it’s a WordPress plugin the fact that I need to go back to wordpress.com for my stats is rather irritating… not a huge deal it’s true, but it feels odd to me. So I don’t think I’ll be passing on this one.
Sorry, my last line should have read “So I think I’ll be passing on this one…”
I love the plugin. It does not slow down my site and it provides just the right information I’m looking for (though I would love to see more info as well). I have not used any other stats program before so I have nothing to compare it to, but for a single blogger with a humble blog, I think WP-Stats works great.
I am sure this is only the beginning for the Automattic Stats plugin. I have always liked Statcounter for its visitor paths but lately I have been getting into Pmetrics from Preformancing. Between Automattic and Perfomancing, it’s Performancing hands down.
If you are looking for full featured web analytics package that tightly integrates with WordPress, give Open Web Analytics for WordPress a try –> http://www.openwebanalytics.com
As a stats illiterate I find the stats plugin ideal for me. It is simple to use and understand and I’ve written about how I use the date to improve my blogs:
http://www.businessblogboost.c.....your-blog/