Does WordPress count your own Views?
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Does WordPress count your own Views?

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When measuring a site’s traffic in WordPress, users often ask, does WordPress count your own views? We have two options to consider.

As WordPress considers two platforms, WordPress.com, and the open-source WordPress.org, the answer may yield different stats for the two platforms.

In this article, we’re going to explore WordPress page views. Specifically, we will explore more details on whether or not WordPress counts your views.

Does WordPress count your own Page Views?

Most users create a WordPress site using the free WordPress.com option. However, some people prefer to use a self-hosted WordPress website using WordPress.org’s open-source platform.

Page views on WordPress.com sites

Counting users’ page views highly depends on the type of platform used for a WordPress site. In this case, users need to see if the “counting users” option is available on a specific platform, such as WordPress.org or WordPress.com.

Let’s describe the matter in more detail.

For example, according to the official resource of WordPress.com, which represents the company that provides hosting for WordPress users and a free option to create a WordPress site, WordPress.com is used to count users’ page views for internal users, such as admins or logged in users. However, WordPress.com has changed its default settings for site owners and is no longer counting page views for logged-in users. Ensure the stats are correct while checking for the “counting option”  on a specific platform.

We tested WordPress.com’s page view hits with a test site. Unlike in the past, WordPress.com now doesn’t count page views when logged into your dashboard.

Here, it would be best to consider the counts for users who own their sites and those who visit an external site built on WordPress.com.

Users who run their sites on WordPress.com can see people’s counts in the dashboard. However, the platform has stopped counting their personal views if they visit their pages. On WordPress.com’s free sites, admins cannot see their view counts if they visit their pages while logged in to their WordPress free sites’ dashboards. However, if logged-in admins visit their pages from a different web browser, WordPress will count their views in this case.

The case is different for external sites. If logged-in admins visit other sites while logged in to their WordPress.com dashboards, their visits to external sites will count as page views for the other sites’ owners.

While WordPress.com may help site owners manage the said option in Settings, it allows admins to track personal site visits for improved performance.

You can verify the above measures on WordPress.com’s official forum thread Here.

Page views in WordPress.org sites

Let’s discuss WordPress.org’s platform and explore whether users on WordPress.org’s self-hosted sites can see their page view hits in the dashboard.

By default, WordPress doesn’t track and show page views in a dashboard unless a site is programmatically configured for the said purpose. In simple words, WordPress.org sites don’t provide native feature(s) to track and show admins’ views in dashboards. By programmatic configuration, we mean a site with special custom measures, such as a custom mechanism to count users’ views in the dashboard. Some companies prefer using custom changes in WordPress to follow such use cases.

In this case, developers’ assistance may change the WordPress core files and insert a custom feature to count your page views – if you prefer changing WordPress’ interface for page view counts. Such scenarios are rare; hence, WordPress provides better ways to track internal, external, or page views from Search Engine Bots. In this case, changing WordPress’ core files is dangerous and may result in WordPress problems. This is not recommended; you must make changes again if you update the WordPress infrastructure. The WordPress updates are applied (automated or manually) when a new update is rolled out.

On the other hand, other tools help you decide if a self-hosted WordPress site tracks users’ page views.

For example, once you’ve installed a WordPress analytics plugin like Monster Insights, your site is configured with default settings for counting page views. In this case, the plugin doesn’t count views from logged-in users or admins. You can also configure how the plugin should perform if you want to ignore or count specific hits, such as those coming from logged-in users.

If, for example, you’re the admin and logged out of the site you own, the same site configured with Monster Insights will count your views. Monster Insights can help you manage options to change or set counting features in its Settings. In this case, you become a regular user browsing a site configured for users’ analytics.

Here, you can decide on one thing.

A WordPress-based site doesn’t count your views if a self-hosted WordPress site is not configured with a tracking measure for internal – admin views. In the case of Monster Insights, your site doesn’t count your views, as configured by the plugin.

Having that clarified, Monster Insights also helps you filter traffic hits in Google Analytics. Above all, Google Analytics allows internal traffic to be filtered on WordPress sites. In this case, you must filter traffic from specific IPs, regions, or expressions.

Page views: WordPress.com vs WordPress.org

WordPress.com and WordPress.org are two different aspects of WordPress sites, yet they both provide the same purpose for users.

WordPress.com is a company that helps users create free sites powered by the WordPress interface. Its free options allow you to create and manage a free site, such as one hosted on the Blogger platform.

The company also provides premium options for those who prefer personal domain names, web hosting, and advanced analytics.

On the other hand, WordPress.org is a different thing in nature.

WordPress.org represents the official resource of the WordPress platform. Thousands of developers contribute to the WordPress platform, as published on its official site – WordPress.org.

Unlike WordPress.com, a website built with WordPress.org requires a manual approach to creation and management. A site created with this approach is often called a self-hosted WordPress site.

In this case, users prefer downloading WordPress from its official resources and setting up the sites’ infrastructure on a web hosting platform.

On a site built on WordPress.com’s platform, users can only manage their page view counts if the platform provides an option. However, the case with a site built on WordPress.org is different.

For sites on WordPress.org, plugins can help you take competitive advantages. Once you’ve installed a plugin for the site’s analytics, you can filter out your views from traffic stats. However, plugins from different companies may prefer other settings to count admins’ page views on a WordPress site.

In some cases, you can change the said options for improved performance. For example, installing the Monster Insights plugin for WordPress analytics configures page view counting features for logged-in users. As Monster Insights needs integration with a Google Analytics account, it can also send updated measures to Google Traffic Stats for your site.

Key Points

  • The platform depends on counting page views in WordPress. Make sure you have found your site’s infrastructure before deciding based on page counts.
  • In most cases, “counting your own views” includes the Admin Views. In this case, the logged-in status of an admin is considered.
  • The page view counts may yield different results for logged-in and logged-out users—keep this in mind.
  • It depends on a site’s infrastructure and custom setup if it will count page views.
  • A custom-built WordPress site may return different results for measures or steps used for regular sites.

Final words

Page views from various locations need to be more precise if you’re trying to filter out specific sources, such as organic traffic, social media, or traffic from logged-in users. In this case, the tool or 3rd party integration can help you while tracking hits from specific sources.

However, the sites’ platforms may provide different options to track page views. As described in this write-up, WordPress.com no longer counts page views for logged-in users and site visitors. On the other hand, sites built on WordPress.org provide a different approach to tracking site visitors and page views. This means that infrastructural support can affect how web owners count or ignore website hits on a WordPress-based platform.

As described in this article, page views count in a self-hosted WordPress site is based on two options – a page view tracking mechanism in place and an analytics app set up on a site. For more information on handling website hits, contact your support channel or developer.

If you would like more information on tracking, managing, or improving your site’s page views from various sources, please let us know about your strategy for organic traffic, page views, or SEO. We help clients sign up for a one-time support plan or monthly routine or fix their problems with a custom support plan.

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