WordPress Post View Analytics

WordPress Post View Analytics is an advanced analytics plugin that not only counts post views on your WordPress site, but also collects higher-quality engagement signals such as engagement time and scroll depth—so you can evaluate content performance in a much more meaningful way.

Instead of stopping at “how many views?”, the plugin classifies each view by dimensions like device type, browser, country (GeoIP), and referrer source. This helps you make better decisions for your content strategy, SEO, and UX improvements.

Key capabilities

1) Automatic view counter + real-time updates

• When a visitor opens a post, a view record is created and the counter is updated on the screen with a smooth animation.
• The counter can be displayed in a standard format or in K/M/B abbreviated form.

2) Engagement analytics: time + scroll

• The plugin tracks how long a visitor stays on the page and how far they scroll.
• These metrics are used in admin summaries and popular content lists to provide better ranking signals than raw views alone.

3) Admin Dashboard: track performance in one place
Under the PV Analytics menu in the WordPress admin area, you get:

• Time Series charts
• Device Split (mobile/tablet/desktop, etc.)
• Top Countries (by country code)
• Top Browsers (browser distribution)
• Top Referrers (traffic sources / referrers)
• Popular Posts list (views + avg engagement + avg scroll metrics)

You can also switch date ranges (e.g., today/week/month/all time) to quickly understand trends.

4) Trending Posts module (Widget + Gutenberg Block + Shortcode)
To showcase your most-read content to visitors:

• Trending Posts Widget: List/Grid/Mini layout options
  • Optional: thumbnail, excerpt, meta/date
  • “HOT” badge: configurable threshold, label, and color
  • Filters: device type (all/mobile/tablet/desktop) and category (specific categories / current category)
• Gutenberg Block (server-side render): same logic available as a block
• Shortcode: a quick way to embed a trending list

5) Counter placement and styling
You can control whether the counter is inserted automatically or manually:

• Automatic placement options:
  • after_title
  • before_content
  • after_content
  • before_comments
  • Manual
• Styling options include multiple counter looks (e.g., “capsule/minimal/shiny/highlighter/glass/big” style variants) plus color/typography controls to match your theme.
• Optional icon support:
  • Font Awesome, Material Icons, Bootstrap Icons, and Remix Icon packages are supported (if selected, the relevant CSS is loaded via CDN).

6) Performance-oriented data model
The plugin uses two dedicated tables:

• wp_pv_post_views: daily post view totals (for fast reporting)
• wp_pv_visitor_log: a detailed row for each view event (device/browser/country/referrer + engagement + scroll)

For fast counter output, a post meta field pv_total_views is also maintained.

Anti-spam / measurement accuracy

• Unique Mode (enabled by default): limits repeated views from the same IP for the same post within a time window (server-side transient logic).
• If Unique Mode is disabled, a short “flood protection” mechanism helps prevent rapid refreshes from inflating counts.

Security and privacy notes (important)

• View logging and engagement updates are handled via REST API.
  • In normal mode, basic Origin/Referer validation is applied.
  • With Strict Mode, REST requests require a nonce.
• Country detection uses a GeoIP API request by default and stores only the country code. GeoIP can be disabled in settings, in which case a simpler locale/language-based fallback is used.
• Visitor IP addresses are not stored in the database; they are used only for unique checks and GeoIP lookups at runtime.

Who is it for?

• Bloggers / content creators (which posts are actually being read?)
• SEO-focused sites (sources, device/browser distribution)
• Anyone optimizing content strategy (highlight trending content)
• UX improvement workflows (scroll + time metrics)

Quick usage

• Install and activate the plugin, then configure counter placement and style under PV Analytics → Settings.
• For manual counter placement: [pv_count]
• For a trending list: [pv_trending title="Trending Posts" days="7" limit="5"]
• Add the “Trending Posts” widget/block anywhere you want.