Simple Feed Stats

Before January 2022, the name of this plugin was “Simple Feed Stats”. That name was used since the plugin was first born back in 2012. Went almost 10 years with that name. Then in 2021, I was asked to change the name because it conflicted with another product (not a WP plugin) that has been using a similar name since before 2012. So it was agreed to change the name of the plugin to “Simple Statistics for Feeds” to avoid any confusion. Note that the abbreviation for the name of this plugin will remain “SFS” going forward.

By default, the Feedburner count badge is not linked to any URL. So to wrap the badge in a link, you can do this for the shortcode:

<a href="https://example.com/feed/">[sfs_count_badge]</a>

Or do this for the template tag:

<a href="https://example.com/feed/"><?php sfs_display_total_count(); ?></a> 

You can change the URL to match the URL of your feed, or anything else. Also check out the other count badge shortcodes and template tags.

If you use WordPress API for the custom feed template, and include the usual template tags for feeds, the SFS plugin will automatically track the custom feed.

Could be several things involved here..

First, as explained in the documentation, feed statistics are updated every 12 hours. So you may see new hits recorded without any change to the displayed feed count. At any time you can click the “Clear cache” link to clear the plugin cache and display the current counts.

Another thing to check, is the plugin setting “Enable custom count” enabled? If so, only the specified number will be displayed. So disable/uncheck the option to display current stats.

Also check if any cache plugins are in use on your site. If your feeds are cached it may affect the stats results.

Lastly, verify that your site’s Cron functionality is working properly. SFS relies on WP Cron functionality to handle the updating of feed counts. Unfortunately, WP Cron does not always work on all servers/hosting environments. Please check out the “Notes” section on the plugin’s Installation page for a list of solutions and more information.

Simple Statistics for Feeds logs requests in the database. So after awhile, the number of logged items can add up. To keep database size down, and resolve slow loading settings page, you can click the “Reset stats” link anytime. Doing so will remove all logged items from the database.

Tip: after clearing the database, your feed stats will show zero “0” until the plugin logs more feed requests. So instead of displaying “0” or other low numbers, you can enable the following settings:

• Custom count
• Enable custom count

Just remember to disable the Custom count setting after a day or so, after the plugin has logged more feed requests.

It has to do with how SFS reports your feed stats. For example, in normal reporting mode (strict mode = off), each feed request is reported as unique. With strict mode enabled, feed requests are filtered by IP address, so that if “Pat” requests your comments feed five times per day, it’s counted as “1” subscriber rather than “5”.

So strict mode is more accurate, but feed counts are usually lower with strict mode enabled. Note also that SFS still records all requests, so if you’re reporting in strict mode the individual request data is still recorded and available in the Feed Stats table. In other words, strict mode determines how recorded data is reported, not collected.

If you don’t already know, you probably don’t need it. Basically it’s a requested feature that enables the inclusion of a custom URL parameter (key/value) in either “custom” or “alt” tracking methods. You know, for stuff like Google Analytics.

During the first 12 hours, data is collected. Then the cache is refreshed to show the latest stats for the previous 12 hours. If your stats are showing zero or you would just like to update the count, visit the “Tools and Options” panel and click the “Clear cache” link.

Also: to test that the plugin is recording hits, visit the “Your Feed Info” panel. There you will find a list of links for your site’s feeds. Click on a few of those links as a test. If the plugin is working correctly, you will see your own feed requests recorded in the “Subscriber Info” panel.

Send any questions or feedback via my contact form. Thanks! 🙂