WordPress Plugin
Popular posts, tracked on your own site
The Hits List keeps post view tracking on your own WordPress site, with a block, widget, shortcodes, dashboard cards, post-list columns, and theme helpers — instead of sending view data to someone else’s analytics endpoint.
Free and open source. View data stays in your database.
- Version
- 1.6.0
- Requires WP
- 6.2+
- Tested to
- 7.1
- Requires PHP
- 7.4+
- View data
- Stays local
What it does
-
Local view tracking
Overall, daily, and recent hourly counts stored in your own WordPress database, with automatic retention cleanup.
-
Block, widget, shortcodes
Popular lists across blocks, widgets, and shortcodes, with ranking suppression, current-post exclusion, and publication-age limits.
-
Trending
Ranks posts by how fast views are rising relative to their own baseline, rather than by total views.
-
Refresh candidates
Find fading articles, snooze candidates, and compare readership before and after an intentional refresh.
-
Dashboard cards
Five cards with configurable role access, plus article-performance reports and sortable columns on selected content types.
-
Privacy-friendly by default
View tracking stores aggregate counts without visitor identifiers, cookies of its own, or a third-party analytics endpoint.
Every feature, in full
| Feature | What It Does for You |
|---|---|
| Local View Tracking | Stores overall, daily, and recent hourly view counts in your WordPress database. |
| Popular Posts Block | Adds popular lists to block layouts, with current-post exclusion and publication-age limits. |
| Popular Posts Widget | Places popular content in sidebars, footers, and widget-ready theme areas. |
| Post Views Block | Displays one article’s count as a standalone block. |
| Ranking Suppression | Keeps individual posts or selected categories and tags out of rankings while preserving tracking and history. |
| Trending | Ranks posts by how fast views are rising, not just by totals. |
| Article Performance | Shows lifetime views, daily charts and tables, and completed-period comparisons on the edit screen. |
| Refresh Workflow | Finds fading articles, supports snooze and undo, and compares readership before and after an intentional refresh. |
| Dashboard Cards | Five reporting cards, with configurable access for additional roles and clear history-coverage labels. |
| Shortcodes | Places popular content directly in post content. |
| Content List Columns | Adds sortable view counts to Posts, Pages, and selected public custom post types. |
| Top 10 Migration | Imports compatible Top 10 counts without double-counting unchanged reruns, and keeps existing Top 10 widgets and shortcodes working. |
| Import And Export | Moves overall and daily counts through CSV/JSON, with replace or add import modes. |
| Count Maintenance | Cleans counts after permanent deletion, sweeps historical orphans in the background, and supports WP-CLI count removal. |
| Privacy-Friendly Operation | Keeps view tracking local, with aggregate counts, no stored visitor identifiers, and no cookies of its own. |
Who it’s for
-
Publishers and blogs
Surface what is climbing now, not just the same evergreen list.
-
Editors
Review view-count signals directly in wp-admin, where you already work.
-
Agencies
Replace Top 10 while keeping familiar popular-post output on client sites.
-
Privacy-conscious sites
Keep tracking data in the WordPress database, with configurable retention.
-
Theme developers
Render popular content through template tags and shortcodes as well as the block and widget.
Version 1.6.0 adds ranking suppression for individual posts and selected categories or tags, current-post exclusion, and publication-age limits. Editors gain article-performance charts, completed-period comparisons, and a refresh workflow with snooze, undo, and seven-day before/after reports. Dashboard roles and content-list columns can be configured for your editorial team.
Recent hourly tracking, CSV/JSON count import, thumbnail fallback, and a Post Views block join the display tools. Permanent deletion clears a post’s counts while Trash preserves them by default; a resumable background sweep repairs historical orphan rows. Read the 1.6.0 release notes for the full changes and upgrade guidance.