Most Share Posts
The Most Shared Posts plugin for WordPress allows you to display, as a widget, which of your blog posts have the most social shares and are proving to be your most popular content.
Version 1.1.0 – 14th August 2011
hosted on wordpress.org
If you’d like to see this plugin in action, you can see it on this site, or you could check out Kate Morris’ SEO Blog or John Doherty’s SEO Blog. They both helped to test the initial version.
Features
If you have feature requests, bug reports or you just want to show me where you are using the plugin please post a comment below or drop me an email to [email protected].
- Fetches Facebook Likes, Twitter Tweets and the new Google +1s.
- Caches results to ensure good performance. Older posts are cached for longer.
- Select which of the 3 social counts to include.
- Select how many posts to display in the list, and an age cut-off.
- For beginners, it is very easy to install with no necessary customisation.
- For advanced users, there are various display options available.
- Option to hide the counts and icons.
- You can have multiple instances on the same page with different titles (e.g “Most Tweeted Posts” showing just the Tweet counts, or “Most Liked Posts” showing just the FB Likes counts etc.)
Installation
The steps to install ‘Most Shared Posts’ are quite simple:
- Upload `most-shared-posts` directory to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory.
- Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
- Go to the ‘Widgets’ page in the ‘Appearance’ section of WordPress.
- Now you can add the widget to different pages of your site. Recommended pages to add the widget: “Sidebar Index”, “Sidebar Single”, “Sidebar Category”.
- You can customise the plugin differently for each of these sections should you wish.
- NOTE: The plugin throttles how quickly it gathers the social data, to ensure it does not cause any slowness for your users. For small sites with less than 100 posts, this should typically be done in the first hour. For sites with other 2000 posts it could take a day or more.
- Now load a page on your blog which should show the widget. This will initiate the first data fetch.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Q: I just installed and refreshed the page, but my most shared posts are not at the top of the list?
A: The plugin will take a little time to collect all the data about your posts. It does so in batches so as not to upset the social networks by requesting too much data at once. You should find that it’ll sort itself out and catch up quite quickly. - Q: I just got tweeted but the count hasn’t updated! Why not?
A: The results for each post are cached for varying lengths of time depending on the posts age. Very recent posts (less than 2 days old) are cached for an hour, and then older posts are cached for incrementally longer periods of time. Posts in the last month are cached for 12 hours, posts 1-6 months old are cached for 48 hours and older posts are cached for a week. - Q: My older posts aren’t showing up…
A: When you add an instance of the widget to a sidebar in the WordPress admin section, you can customise how far back you wish to look; the default is 2 years. - Q: Where can I change how many posts are included in the list?
A: When you add an instance of the widget to a sidebar in the WordPress admin section, you can customise how many posts to include; the default is 5. - Q: I activated the plugin, but I don’t see it. 🙁
A: This plugin is a widget, so after activating it you need to go to the Appearance->Widgets section of your WordPress settings and select which pages you’d like it to appear on. - Q: Can I include the count inside a post or a page?
A: Yes – there is now a shortcode option. The shortcode has a few options (all are optional):[most-shared-posts num_posts="5" max_month_age="24" title="Most Shared Posts"]
- Q: I have no shares. How depressing… help!
A: Assuming you’re providing content worthy of being shared… Make sure you are including sharing buttons on your blog in a consistent fashion. I recommend adding them into your theme, or alternatively:- Alex Moss of Pleer has created some great social button plugins for Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
- The AddThis plugin is very popular, and provides a variety of sharing buttons.
- At sharethis.com, they provide a variety of sharing plugins.
- The Sharedaddy plugin, part of Jetpack from WordPress.com, provides a range of social buttons.
Changelog
Version 1.0.0 – 4th August 2011
- Initial Release
Version 1.0.1 – 5th August 2011
- Update on the format of the API requests for added robustness.
- Added link to the FAQ on plugin activation.
Version 1.1.0 – 14th August 2011
- Can now view social stats in admin area (with or without an active widget).
- Added a shortcode option to include within posts/pages.
- Data now collected without an active widget.
- Improved method for scheduling data collection.
- Various code tidying and improvements.
Donate
Please consider a donation, or alternatively enabling the attribution link in the settings:
Really good information, many congratulation to the admin and author. It is perceive to me but helpful and importance is very intense. good luck for your next future.
Is there a way to display total shares per post on each post’s ‘post-info’ field?
Hi,
There are a lot of transients in database.
Must have I delete its? Are there any plugin?
Thanks.
One of the best articles i have read.I Like your effort and hardworking.
Thanks for the plugin.
I have it for one or two months now, but it doesn’t work perfectly. my website: webodysseum.com
The count for number of shared post for twitter is correct, but for facebook, the plugin doesn’t work perfectly.
For exemple, my most shared post: http://webodysseum.com/art/beatles-abbey-road-on-08-august-1969/
And you can see the error for the facebook count on the sidebar.
What should I do ?
thank you
Hi!
I’m SimonTheSorcerer and I use your fantastic plugin and I experience near total user satisfaction except. This does not take into account the comments my posts receive. Is there any way to get the number of comments displayed and/or include them in the calculation.
Thanks for your answers! Also here is my Blog: http://simonsblogpark.com/personal/
Thanks, good plug-in. Just installed.
My plug-in om my site has stopped counting. Anyone elde who has the same problem?
This plugin has probably a bug and should be updated. some days ago i found that the plugin shown exactly 130 likes for some posts but the likes wasn’t real.
for example a post with 5 likes passed to 130 in just a night, and like this many other posts.
i checked the sharing stats directly in fb and the counter were right…but no-one clicked like button…
probably an hacking system?
i don’t understand how this can happen and i removed the plugin. i don’t want google thinks i use automatic likes or such these things.
any other with this problem?
Hi, i have problem with showing data for facebook and twitter. Plugin shows me only number of G+ shares. I saw that few of you in comments have a same problem, so i’m wondering if someone found solution for this problem!
Thanks
Thanks Tom for fantastic plugin! It is exactly what I was looking for.
I have only one question/problem: after 14 hours since installation plugin fetched only shares on Google+, while fields about FB and Twitter shares stay blank. Is this normal or number of shares on all three social sites should already appear?
Hi Tom,
thanks a lot for this great plugin. What I wanted to ask is, whether you have plans to include other networks like LinkedIn and Pinterest in one of the next updates?
All the best,
Patrick
Hello,
I have a problem with the plugin: It’s correctly installed since 10 days but it does not take Twitter and Facebook into account. I only see count updates for +1s.
I tried to reinstal but it’s the same.
Thanks for your help,
Gat
i use this plugin. it is professional and useful plugin.
The plugin don’t work with google plus count, only twitter and facebook, any ideas? tx
Thank you Tom for this article I was searching this plugin for a long time now i found your article and i’m very happy! Thanks again!
Any idea why the icons of the sosial networks does not show up in the most-shared-posts-stats? When trying to show the images, I just get this: /wp-admin/%3C?=plugins_url(‘google_icon.png’,%20__FILE__)?%3E
This is one of my favorite plugins, I didn’t realize you made this. I’m hoping that a future version will enable you to sort your most shared posts by categories.
It really very useful post. Thanks for sharing such beneficial resources.
I was searching word press toll for my site and i get some useful tool in your blog post thanks for giving nice idea.
Can you add one more social network – vk.com?
VK is the most popular social network in Russia and post-USSSR republics.
They have pretty the same like buttons as Facebook.
I’n already try to add this to youк plugin, but something were wrong and it update the stats just once, so i can share the code
Thanks Tom for wonderful plugin! it’s precisely what i used to be probing for. I actually have only 1 question/problem: when fourteen hours since installation plugin fetched solely shares on Google+, whereas fields concerning FB and Twitter shares keep blank. is that this traditional or range of shares on all 3 social sites ought to already appear? http://www.peoplesplumber.co.uk/plumber-kings-cross.html
Hi! This looks pretty awesome, but I’m just wondering… would it work for pulling the most shared from across a multisite network?
Thanks!
nice post
The first time I saw this blog I was immediately impressed because this is very good blog.. I hope you can publish useful articles again.. Very usefull information.. thx for sharing
Thanks for the marvelous posting! I certainly enjoyed reading it
How long would it work on a blog with 10,000+ posts?
Nice plugin
Hi, great plugin – is there a chance that you also include LinkedIn??
All the best,
Sven
nice plugin, thanks a lot
Nice plugin
Hello, I have your plugin installed on my website for several years. It had been working great until recently, when I found the list of most shared posts stopped being updated. I think the problem arised after WordPress is updated to newer versions. I’d really appreciate if you could maybe fix the plugin. Thanks!