Wordpress · Wordpress Setup

Which WordPress Popular Post Plugin to Install?

I wanted visitors to my site to be able to view the content they were looking for as well as expose them to topics  that were popular on my site.   Popular posts these days seem to be around creating sites like Groupon or Craigslist.  But if you didn’t come looking for those topics you would never know that I had written about these topics.    So that’s why I was looking for a Wordpress popular post plugin.

As you can see on my left hand side, I installed a popular post plugin.  I was looking for one for a while now but couldn’t decide on which one to install.  So I figure I would blog about it in case you were looking for a popular post plugin for your Wordpress site as well.   Well it’s mostly for me in case I forget or need to install on another WordPress site I can always just refer back to here.

Initially I installed the “WordPress.com Popular Post”.   The installation and activation went smoothly but I couldn’t figure out how it was calculating it’s stats to figure out which one was the most popular post.  Then I found out I needed to install another plugin – “WordPress.com Stats”.  I looked at that plugin and I would need to register blahblahblah.  I’m not the type of person to go around registering on million different sites for API keys etc.  I just gave up on it and deleted the plugin.

The current plugin I found is called “WordPress Popular Post”.  It’s great so far.  After installation it comes under the Settings, WordPress Popular post link.  But the way you configure it is in the Widgets section.  After you drag the widget to your sidebar, there are many options you can configure such as sort, # of posts, display settings and others.  See image below.

In addition, under the dashboard you will see a new link there called ‘WordPress Popular Post Stats’.   There are different tabs to see which are the most popular entries on your blog today, this week, last 30 days or all time since this plugin was installed.  You can also see how many times your top X number of posts were viewed and how many comments they have.    So far I’m happy with the plugin.  If I run into any problems, I’ll let you know!

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