Plugin info

Total downloads: 3,357,012
Active installs: 100,000
Total reviews: 65
Average rating: 4.4
Support threads opened: 1
Support threads resolved: 0 (0%)
Available in: 20 language(s)
Contributors: 2
Last updated: 8/31/2025 (120 days ago)
Added to WordPress: 2/8/2006 (19 years old)
Minimum WordPress version: 4.0
Tested up to WordPress version: 6.8.3
Minimum PHP version: f

Maintenance & Compatibility

Maintenance score

Maintained • Last updated 120 days ago • Support resolved 0% • 65 reviews

46/100

Is WP-PostViews abandoned?

Likely maintained (last update 120 days ago).

Compatibility

Requires WordPress: 4.0
Tested up to: 6.8.3
Requires PHP: f

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Description

Usage

  1. Open wp-content/themes//index.php
  2. You may place it in archive.php, single.php, post.php or page.php also.
  3. Find:
  4. Add Anywhere Below It (The Place You Want The Views To Show):
  5. Or you can use the shortcode [views] or [views id="1"] (where 1 is the post ID) in a post
  6. Go to WP-Admin -> Settings -> PostViews to configure the plugin.

Development

https://github.com/lesterchan/wp-postviews/

Translations

http://dev.wp-plugins.org/browser/wp-postviews/i18n/

Credits

Donations

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.

Version 1.76.1

  • NEW: Add Post Author in views template
  • NEW: Bump for WordPress 5.3

Version 1.76

  • NEW: Added postviews_should_count filter
  • FIXED: Change to (int) from intval() and use sanitize_key() with it.

Version 1.75

  • NEW: Use WP_Query() for most/least viewed posts

Version 1.74

  • NEW: Bump WordPress 4.7
  • 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

Version 1.73

  • FIXED: In preview mode, don’t count views

Version 1.72

  • NEW: Add %POST_THUMBNAIL% to template variables

Version 1.71

  • FIXED: Notices in Widget Constructor for WordPress 4.3

Version 1.70

  • FIXED: Integration with WP-Stats

Version 1.69

  • NEW: Shortcode [views] or [views id=”POST_ID”]` to embed view count into post
  • NEW: Added template variable %VIEW_COUNT_ROUNDED% to support rounded view count like 10.1k or 11.2M

Version 1.68

  • NEW: Added action hook ‘postviews_increment_views’ and ‘postviews_increment_views_ajax’
  • NEW: Allow custom post type to be chosen under the widget

Version 1.67

  • NEW: Allow user to not use AJAX to update the views even though WP_CACHE is true

Version 1.66

  • NEW: Supports MultiSite Network Activation
  • NEW: Add %POST_DATE% and %POST_TIME% to template variables
  • NEW: Add China isearch engines bots
  • NEW: Ability to pass in an array of post types for get_most/least_*() functions. Props Leo Plaw.
  • FIXED: Moved uninstall to uninstall.php and hence fix missing nonce. Props Julio Potier.
  • FIXED: Notices and better way to get views from meta. Props daankortenbach.
  • FIXED: No longer needing add_post_meta() if update_post_meta() fails.

Version 1.65 (02-06-2013)

  • FIXED: Views not showing in WP-Admin if “Display Options” is not set to “Display to everyone”

Installation

No installation instructions available

Frequently Asked Questions

How To View Stats With Widgets?

  • Go to WP-Admin -> Appearance -> Widgets
  • The widget name is Views.

To Display Least Viewed Posts

<?php if (function_exists('get_least_viewed')): ?>
    <ul>
        <?php get_least_viewed(); ?>
    </ul>
<?php endif; ?>
  • The first value you pass in is the post type that you want. If you want to get every post types, just use ‘both’. It also supports PHP array: example array('post', 'page').
  • The second value you pass in is the maximum number of post you want to get.
  • Default: get_least_viewed(‘both’, 10);

To Display Most Viewed Posts

<?php if (function_exists('get_most_viewed')): ?>
    <ul>
        <?php get_most_viewed(); ?>
    </ul>
<?php endif; ?>
  • The first value you pass in is the post type that you want. If you want to get every post types, just use ‘both’. It also supports PHP array: example array('post', 'page').
  • The second value you pass in is the maximum number of post you want to get.
  • Default: get_most_viewed(‘both’, 10);

To Display Least Viewed Posts By Tag

<?php if (function_exists('get_least_viewed_tag')): ?>
    <ul>
        <?php get_least_viewed_tag(); ?>
    </ul>
<?php endif; ?>
  • The first value you pass in is the tag id.
  • The second value you pass in is the post type that you want. If you want to get every post types, just use ‘both’. It also supports PHP array: example array('post', 'page').
  • The third value you pass in is the maximum number of post you want to get.
  • Default: get_least_viewed_tag(1, ‘both’, 10);

To Display Most Viewed Posts By Tag

<?php if (function_exists('get_most_viewed_tag')): ?>
    <ul>
        <?php get_most_viewed_tag(); ?>
    </ul>
<?php endif; ?>
  • The first value you pass in is the tag id.
  • The second value you pass in is the post type that you want. If you want to get every post types, just use ‘both’. It also supports PHP array: example array('post', 'page').
  • The third value you pass in is the maximum number of post you want to get.
  • Default: get_most_viewed_tag(1, ‘both’, 10);

To Display Least Viewed Posts For A Category

<?php if (function_exists('get_least_viewed_category')): ?>
    <ul>
        <?php get_least_viewed_category(); ?>
    </ul>
<?php endif; ?>
  • The first value you pass in is the category id.
  • The second value you pass in is the post type that you want. If you want to get every post types, just use ‘both’. It also supports PHP array: example array('post', 'page').
  • The third value you pass in is the maximum number of post you want to get.
  • Default: get_least_viewed_category(1, ‘both’, 10);

To Display Most Viewed Posts For A Category

<?php if (function_exists('get_most_viewed_category')): ?>
    <ul>
        <?php get_most_viewed_category(); ?>
    </ul>
<?php endif; ?>
  • The first value you pass in is the category id.
  • The second value you pass in is the post type that you want. If you want to get every post types, just use ‘both’. It also supports PHP array: example array('post', 'page').
  • The third value you pass in is the maximum number of post you want to get.
  • Default: get_most_viewed_category(1, ‘both’, 10);

To Sort Most/Least Viewed Posts

  • You can use: <?php query_posts( array( 'meta_key' => 'views', 'orderby' => 'meta_value_num', 'order' => 'DESC' ) ); ?>
  • Or pass in the variables to the URL: http://yoursite.com/?v_sortby=views&v_orderby=desc
  • You can replace DESC with ASC if you want the least viewed posts.

To Display Updating View Count With LiteSpeed Cache

Use: <div id="postviews_lscwp"></div> to replace <?php if(function_exists('the_views')) { the_views(); } ?>.
NOTE: The id can be changed, but the div id and the ajax function must match.
Replace the ajax query in wp-content/plugins/wp-postviews/postviews-cache.js with

jQuery.ajax({
    type:"GET",
    url:viewsCacheL10n.admin_ajax_url,
    data:"postviews_id="+viewsCacheL10n.post_id+"&action=postviews",
    cache:!1,
    success:function(data) {
        if(data) {
            jQuery('#postviews_lscwp').html(data+' views');
        }
   }
});

Purge the cache to use the updated pages.

To Get Views With REST API

You can obtain the number of post views by adding views to your _fields parameter:
/wp/v2/posts?_fields=views,title

Review feed

Mikhail Alferov
12/21/2018

Thanks for the filter 'postviews_should_count'!

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);

Screenshots

  1. PostViews

    PostViews

  2. Admin - PostViews Options

    Admin - PostViews Options

Changelog

Version 1.78

  • NEW: Add %POST_THUMBNAIL_URL% to template variables

Version 1.77

  • NEW: Use Vanilla JS. Props @JiveDig
  • NEW: Bump to WordPress 6.2
  • NEW: Support views under fields for Rest API. Props @vitro-mod