<p>This is the simplest hit counter I could imagine (well, almost). Every time a<br />
page is requested, it adds one to the count. The display is not an image, just<br />
text. There is no javascript to hit some third-party server, no tracking, no<br />
distinction among pages: just an old-fashioned site counter CGI, implemented in<br />
WordPress. The plugin stores its count in its own MySQL table.</p>
<p>Once the plugin is installed (described below), you can display the count by<br />
putting code like this somewhere on your page:</p>
<pre><code><?= simplehitcounter_hit(); ?>
</code></pre>
<p>That will both increment the counter and display its value. There is no method<br />
for getting the value without incrementing it. I suppose I could write such a<br />
thing if anyone likes.</p>
<p>There is a minor race condition. First the plugin updates the database by one<br />
(atomically), then it queries for the current count. Therefore in heavy traffic<br />
it is possible for two updates to happen before either select. In that case,<br />
the counter will correctly increment, but the number displayed may be the same<br />
for each user, representing the total page hits. As far as I can tell, this<br />
race condition is inevitable without locking the table. It seems trivial<br />
enough, though I guess you should be warned if you run a contest to give away a<br />
free car to the 1,000,000th user.</p>
<p>By default the plugin keeps its data in a table called <code>wp_simplehitcounter_hits</code>.<br />
You can change this by editing the <code>simplehitcounter.php</code> file.</p>


Simple Hit Counter

Prints a count of the number of hits your blog has received, tracked in the 
database.

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.

Simple Hit Counter vs WP-PostViews