Long Watch Studio - Code Faeries

<p>CodeFaeries Views Metrics provides comprehensive view tracking for any post type including posts, pages, WooCommerce products, and custom post types. Built with clean, modern code architecture and extensive customization options.</p>
<p><strong>Works with or without WooCommerce</strong> – This plugin is fully functional for any WordPress site, whether you use WooCommerce or not. WooCommerce integration is completely optional and provides bonus features when available.</p>
<h4>Key Features</h4>
<ul>
<li><strong>Universal Tracking</strong> – Works with posts, pages, WooCommerce products, and any custom post type</li>
<li><strong>Dashboard Widget</strong> – At-a-glance statistics with interactive chart on WordPress dashboard</li>
<li><strong>Gutenberg Blocks</strong> – Post Views and Most Viewed Posts blocks for the block editor</li>
<li><strong>Most Viewed Posts Widget</strong> – Sidebar widget to display popular content</li>
<li><strong>Smart Exclusions</strong> – Exclude crawlers, AI bots, logged-in users, guests, specific roles, categories, or individual posts</li>
<li><strong>Flexible Display</strong> – Show counters before content, after content, or manually via shortcode with customizable text</li>
<li><strong>Role-Based Visibility</strong> – Control which user roles can see view counters</li>
<li><strong>Role-Based Counting</strong> – Exclude specific roles from being counted (admins and shop managers by default)</li>
<li><strong>Performance Optimized</strong> – Multiple tracking methods (PHP, JavaScript, REST API) including async modes for cached sites</li>
<li><strong>WooCommerce Integration</strong> – Sort products by most viewed on shop pages</li>
<li><strong>Quick/Bulk Edit</strong> – Manually adjust view counts directly from admin lists</li>
<li><strong>Import Tool</strong> – Migrate view data from WP-PostViews or other plugins</li>
<li><strong>GDPR Compliant</strong> – IP anonymization options and privacy policy snippet</li>
<li><strong>Developer Friendly</strong> – Clean, well-documented code with filters and hooks</li>
<li><strong>Admin Integration</strong> – View counts in post/product listing pages with sorting</li>
<li><strong>Real-Time Statistics</strong> – Dashboard showing total, today, yesterday, weekly, and monthly views</li>
</ul>
<h3>Third-Party Libraries</h3>
<p>This plugin uses the following third-party libraries:</p>
<h4>Chart.js</h4>
<ul>
<li>License: MIT License — https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT</li>
<li>Source: https://github.com/chartjs/Chart.js</li>
<li>Version: 4.5.0</li>
<li>Usage: renders interactive charts in the admin dashboard widget and the post-list column chart modal.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Select2</h4>
<ul>
<li>License: MIT License — https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT</li>
<li>Source: https://github.com/select2/select2</li>
<li>Version: 4.0.13</li>
<li>Usage: enhances the searchable dropdowns on the plugin settings page.</li>
</ul>


CodeFaeries Views Metrics

Lightweight post and product views tracking with dashboard stats, Gutenberg blocks, and smart exclusions.

Lester Chan

<h3>Usage</h3>
<ol>
<li>Open <code>wp-content/themes/<YOUR THEME NAME>/index.php</code></li>
<li>You may place it in archive.php, single.php, post.php or page.php also.</li>
<li>Find: <code><?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?></code></li>
<li>Add Anywhere Below It (The Place You Want The Views To Show): <code><?php if(function_exists('the_views')) { the_views(); } ?></code></li>
<li>Or you can use the shortcode <code>[views]</code> or <code>[views id="1"]</code> (where 1 is the post ID) in a post</li>
<li>Go to <code>WP-Admin -> Settings -> PostViews</code> to configure the plugin.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Development</h3>
<p><a href="https://github.com/lesterchan/wp-postviews/" title="https://github.com/lesterchan/wp-postviews/" rel="nofollow ugc">https://github.com/lesterchan/wp-postviews/</a></p>
<h3>Translations</h3>
<p><a href="http://dev.wp-plugins.org/browser/wp-postviews/i18n/" title="http://dev.wp-plugins.org/browser/wp-postviews/i18n/" rel="nofollow ugc">http://dev.wp-plugins.org/browser/wp-postviews/i18n/</a></p>
<h3>Credits</h3>
<ul>
<li>Plugin icon by <a href="http://www.icomoon.io" rel="nofollow ugc">Iconmoon</a> from <a href="http://www.flaticon.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Flaticon</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Donations</h3>
<p>I spent most of my free time creating, updating, maintaining and supporting these plugins, if you really love my plugins and could spare me a couple of bucks, I will really appreciate it. If not feel free to use it without any obligations.</p>
<h3>Version 1.76.1</h3>
<ul>
<li>NEW: Add Post Author in views template</li>
<li>NEW: Bump for WordPress 5.3</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 1.76</h3>
<ul>
<li>NEW: Added postviews_should_count filter</li>
<li>FIXED: Change to (int) from intval() and use sanitize_key() with it.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 1.75</h3>
<ul>
<li>NEW: Use WP_Query() for most/least viewed posts</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 1.74</h3>
<ul>
<li>NEW: Bump WordPress 4.7</li>
<li>NEW: Template variable %POST_CATEGORY_ID%. It returns Post’s Category ID. If you are using Yoast SEO Plugin, it will return the priority Category ID. Props @FunFrog-BY</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 1.73</h3>
<ul>
<li>FIXED: In preview mode, don’t count views</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 1.72</h3>
<ul>
<li>NEW: Add %POST_THUMBNAIL% to template variables</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 1.71</h3>
<ul>
<li>FIXED: Notices in Widget Constructor for WordPress 4.3</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 1.70</h3>
<ul>
<li>FIXED: Integration with WP-Stats</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 1.69</h3>
<ul>
<li>NEW: Shortcode <code>[views]</code> or [views id=”POST_ID”]` to embed view count into post</li>
<li>NEW: Added template variable <code>%VIEW_COUNT_ROUNDED%</code> to support rounded view count like 10.1k or 11.2M</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 1.68</h3>
<ul>
<li>NEW: Added action hook ‘postviews_increment_views’ and ‘postviews_increment_views_ajax’</li>
<li>NEW: Allow custom post type to be chosen under the widget</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 1.67</h3>
<ul>
<li>NEW: Allow user to not use AJAX to update the views even though WP_CACHE is true</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 1.66</h3>
<ul>
<li>NEW: Supports MultiSite Network Activation</li>
<li>NEW: Add %POST_DATE% and %POST_TIME% to template variables</li>
<li>NEW: Add China isearch engines bots</li>
<li>NEW: Ability to pass in an array of post types for get_most/least_*() functions. Props Leo Plaw.</li>
<li>FIXED: Moved uninstall to uninstall.php and hence fix missing nonce. Props Julio Potier.</li>
<li>FIXED: Notices and better way to get views from meta. Props daankortenbach.</li>
<li>FIXED: No longer needing add_post_meta() if update_post_meta() fails.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 1.65 (02-06-2013)</h3>
<ul>
<li>FIXED: Views not showing in WP-Admin if “Display Options” is not set to “Display to everyone”</li>
</ul>


WP-PostViews

Now I can independently control the logic of counting! Like this:

function exclude_wp_post_views_count($should_count, $id) {
    if ( current_user_can('administrator') ) { // or other condition(s)
        $should_count = false;
    }
    return $should_count;
}
add_filter('postviews_should_count', 'exclude_wp_post_views_count', 10, 2);


Thanks for the filter 'postviews_should_count'!

Enables you to display how many times a post/page had been viewed.

CodeFaeries Views Metrics vs WP-PostViews