Sometimes people moving from Blogger to WordPress can be confused about how to track page views. Blogger has a built-in page view counter (it’s highly inaccurate, but that’s not the point..), but WordPress does not. So how do you track page views in WordPress? Thanks to Lydia, I’m going to address that today!
Hi Ashley! Your tutorials have been awesome with my switch to WordPress but which plugin would you recommend for page views and statistics? I’m looking for one that doesn’t include the “back end” work of the site that I do and also, how would I install it?
Lydia
In WordPress, you need to find a third party plugin to install on your blog in order to track page views and unique visitors. But the good news is, there are a ton of options! I’ll go over a few of them.
Google Analytics
I think Google Analytics is the best method for tracking page views and other visit information. Google Analytics isn’t a WordPress-specific thing, but it can very easily be installed on a WordPress blog.
I use a plugin called Google Analyticator. Once installed, this plugin simply connects to your Google account and voila! It’s basically done. They actually have an installation video on their website.
Once installed, Google Analyticator hooks up your site with Google Analytics. So then if you wait a few days for it to start gathering statistics, then visit http://www.google.com/analytics/, you will see your page views and other information there! Additionally, Google Analyticator adds a widget to your WordPress dashboard, which contains a more condensed version of the statistics. It shows you information for the last month including: number of visits, page views, average time on site, top pages, top referrers, and top searches.
If you want to view the full report, you can always go to the Google Analytics website to learn more!
There is also an option to not track Administrators on your site. This means your own visits will be excluded from the logs.
NewStatPress
NewStatPress is a WordPress plugin. You simply install it, and it adds a new tab on your blog for statistics. When you view it, you can see the number of page views, visitors, and feed hits. It also shows you recent search terms and referrers.
The downside to NewStatPress is that I find the numbers to be less accurate than Google Analytics. But this is a good option for people who want everything contained within WordPress itself and don’t want to use a third party site.
Jetpack
Okay I personally despise all things Jetpack, but a lot of people do like it, which is why I’m including it. Jetpack has a ton of features, but one of them is a statistics feature. The information it shows is very similar to NewStatPress, including referrers, top posts and pages, search terms, views, and visitors.
How do you install these plugins?
All of these plugins can be installed by going to the “Plugins” tab on your WordPress admin page, clicking “Add New”, then just search for the plugin name there (“Google Analyticator”, “NewStatPress”, or “Jetpack”). Then hit install, activate it, and look for the settings page to configure it!
Thanks girl, I am saving all these posts for when I switch.
I use Google Analytics mostly, because I think it has the most information and is very easy to use.
Great article, Ashley π
I have the newstatpress and I love it! Really helpful and I like comparing which days I got the most views etc. But the Google Analytic DOES look and sound MORE accurate.
Leigh
Little Book Star
Great post, Ashley! I’m quite liking NewStatPress so I’ll probably just stick to it. Oh, I also realised you never placed your CreativeWhim button thingy on my blog…
ASHLEY THIS IS NOT GOOD I’ve been seeing a BILLION WordPress-related posts, and now I seriously want to make the switch, as soon as I convince my mom to let me pay the money to keep it going a year or something like that but ahh *runs around*
Fantastic post, Ashley! <33
I use StatCounter Stats! But I also have Jetpack and Google Analytics. *cough* I mostly just use it (StatCounter) to see how people find my blog (if they’re clicking on Twitter links or whatnot) so it works out well enough for my needs.
I don’t think Jetpack has an option to not track admins, too. So if I’m writing a review and preview it 1000 times to ensure perfection in formatting, it shows up in my total hits (I think). It’s pretty annoying. But I just live with it and use GA as my primary (and StatCounter).
Now that you mentioned this, I will most probably stick to Google Analytics when I switch to wordpress. π
So then do you know how to find the number of pageviews with Google Analytics for just one particular page/blog post? I’ve been trying to figure it out and am coming up blank.
In Google Analytics, click on the “Behavior” tab and click on “Site Content” (the “All Pages” section). There you can see each page on your blog and how many hits they get. You can also use the search tool to locate a specific page.
Thanks Ashley! I had found it by accident by continually putzing around and then lost it again. So now I know exactly where it is with your info! Thanks!!
I’ve always used StatCounter because I found GA confusing. I really need to play with it more though, because everyone swears by its accuracy.
isnt there a plugin that allows you in WP to exclude your visit on IP level. Present plugins including Jetpack, only exclude your visit when your already logged in.
And setting cookies is only half the job. My FF delets all cookies[safety] after it is closed. So cookie control doesnt work.
I don’t know if there’s a plugin that’s set up to do that, but it’s definitely possible. You could manually do it with code if you’re comfortable with PHP. Use a function like this to get the visitor’s IP, check to see if it’s YOUR IP, and if it’s not, only then add the Google Analytics tracking code.
thanks for yr reply ashley, but no, totally not comfortable with PHP. Just looking for someone that could setup a simple plugin to add to WP that corrects the stats
I think Google Analytics will work good for me because I already have a large number of plugins installed in my CMS. Adding another one is not a good idea if Google Analytics can do the same work π
Thanks for this great article π
You got a very handy list there, i already use GA, and tried jetpack. Pretty much loaded with other features, but if you want a simple blog with only a few plugin that does alot, jetpack is awesome π
Has anyone used one of these with PilotPress? Any tracking issues between the two?
This helped me a lot as a new web developer , but
Is there Aany wp inbuilt methods to get the overview of the website?
great post you have here. I just switched to wordpress and I needed this fix. Am now relieved and going to apply this immediately.
I think bloggers blog get more traffic and pageviews than wordpress.
Why is that happening.
I have use two of them and know the difference.
They do not get more traffic simply because they’re on Blogger.
The statistics shown in Blogger are less accurate. They include a lot of ‘fake’ page views that aren’t real people/visitors.
Google Analytics is a more accurate representation of the real people on your site.
Fake! I thought is very accurate, but what am asking is will it appear like that to search engine that such site is getting such pageviews?
This information is very appreciative…..
Thanks for giving these options! Google Analytics is great.
But I am looking for something which tracks the page views without having to load some additional script or anything which hampers the page load time by even a tiny bit. I would not mind if it does not provide many details like which country the page views come from, which browser, etc. But it should not ruin my WordPress blog’s speed at all. I hope you get what I am trying to say. Could you help me out here?
Thank you.
It’s simply not possible. In order to track statistics, it requires loading *something*.
– A script.
– An image.
– Writing to your database.
All of those will add *something*.
But we’re talking milliseconds here.. It’s not worth arguing over that small amount of loading time. Plus Google Analytics loads asynchronously. A human would almost certainly not notice the extra loading time at all.
Okay. I’ll probably use Google Analyticator then! π
Thank you.
Great piece of work Ashley,
I personally use the Google Analytics Stats Counter Statistics plugin. Works tremendously for me especially because I run more than one blog and all of them are being managed in one hood thanks to the web application available by this plugin.
Very helpful article! Thanks Ashley
Hi Ashley, is there a plugin that gives page views reports from as that are widgets on my site, can’t seem to find andy. Thanks
Hi there,
Thanks for your post!
I installed the google Analytics plugin, went and did the settings, tried to drag it over in the widget section but it gives me an error when I add the widget.. see far below. What / how do i fix this, do you know?
Thanks
Mel
There was an Analytics API service error 400: Error calling GET https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/management/accounts/XXXXXXXX/webproperties/UA-XXXXXXXX-X/profiles: (400) invalid accountId: XXXXXXXX.
Really helpful, thank you
WP stat is also a good plugin to track visitors and country and which platform are they using.
Hi Ashley,
Do you still recommend Google Analyticator to connect to Google Analytics? I have some issues with Google Analytics. It shows zero, but my wordpress blog shows traffic in the hundreds. I’m trying to figure out what went wrong, and how I can fix it. Do I need a plugin that connects with Google Analytics? I thought by placing a code into the header it would be all taken care of.
Did you wait a few days after adding Google Analytics? It can take up to 48 hours to start seeing your stats.
Thank you so much! This really helped