WordPress.com Popular Posts integrates with Wordpress.com Stats plugin, providing a widget to show the most viewed posts.

Installation

  • From v2.0.0, WordPress 2.8 is required. If you are using an older version of WordPress, use v1.3.5 of this plugin.
  • Install Wordpress.com Stats plugin (required at least v1.2!!!)
  • Download Wordpress.com Popular Posts
  • Extract the files in the .zip archive, and upload them (including subfolders) to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory
  • Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
  • Place the widget where you like in your sidebars
  • Enjoy!

Themes Integration

If your theme supports widgets, you can place the widget named ‘Popular Posts’ where you want.

If it doesn’t, put this code inside the file sidebar.php, in your theme files:

<?php if (function_exists('WPPP_show_popular_posts')) WPPP_show_popular_posts(); ?>

Optionally you can add some parameters to the function, in this format:

name=value&name=value etc.

Possible names are:

  • title (title of the widget, you can add tags (e.g. <h3>Popular Posts</h3>) default: Popular Posts)
  • number (number of links shown, default: 5)
  • days (length of the time frame of the stats, default 0, i.e. infinite)
  • show (what you want to show; it can be: both, posts, pages; default is both)
  • format (the format of the links shown, default: 
    <a href='%post_permalink%' title='%post_title%'>%post_title%</a>

    )

  • excerpt_length (the length of the excerpt, if %post_excerpt% is used in the format)
  • title_length (the length of the title links, default 0, i.e. unlimited)
  • exclude (the list of post/page IDs to exclude, separated by commas. Read the FAQ for instructions)
  • cutoff (don’t show posts/pages with a view count under this number, default 0, i.e. unlimited)
  • list_tag (can be: ul, ol, none, default ul)
  • category (the ID of the category, see the FAQ for info. Default 0, i.e. all categories)
  • cachename (it is used to enable the cache. Please read the FAQ).

You can use these special markers in the format value:

  • %post_permalink% the link to the post
  • %post_title% the title the post
  • %post_title_attribute% the title of the post; use this in attributes, e.g. 
    <a title='%post_title_attribute%'...
  • %post_views% number of views
  • %post_excerpt% the first n characters of the content. Set n in the widget options.
  • %post_category% the category of the post
Example

If you want to show the widget without any title, the 3 most viewed articles, in the last week, and in this format: My Article (123 views) you will use this:

<?php WPPP_show_popular_posts( "title=&number=3&days=7&format=<a href='%post_permalink%' title='%post_title_attribute%'>%post_title% (%post_views% views)</a>" );?>
Shortcodes

If you want to include the list in a particular page or post, you can use shortcodes. Please read the FAQ for further info.

FAQ

Please read other updated FAQ here.

Changelog

You can read the whole changelog on the project page.

Download

Download
Download latest version of Wordpress.com Popular Posts for WordPress 2.8+

or v1.3.5 for Wordpress < 2.8

License

Wordpress.com Popular Posts is released under a GPL v3 license.

This plugin required many hours of development. If you like this plugin, then buy me a coffee!