About this plugin
Scalarpoint Unique Post Views adds a sortable Unique views column to the Posts screen. You can filter published posts by a view threshold, choose ascending or descending view order, use a publication date range, and apply the normal WordPress category filter, then export candidate post IDs and details to CSV.
The plugin does not delete, trash, archive, redirect, or modify post content automatically.
How counting works
- Editors and administrators, common crawlers, feeds, previews, and non-published posts are excluded.
- A small background request increments one post-meta value for the viewed post.
- Browser local storage prevents ordinary refreshes in the same browser from counting again for that post.
- No visitor table, visitor hash, IP address, cookie, or per-visitor row is stored.
- Counts represent unique browser/post combinations, not verified unique humans.
The count is stored in the _post_counter_views post meta field.
Cleanup workflow
- Open Posts in the WordPress dashboard.
- Enter a maximum view count, choose an ascending or descending view order, and set a publication date range or category if needed.
- Review the resulting posts and optionally click Export candidate IDs.
- Check Search Console impressions, backlinks, internal links, and content quality.
- Back up the site before archiving, redirecting, trashing, or deleting anything.
For SEO, consolidating a weak post into a stronger post with a redirect is often safer than deleting it solely because its view count is low.
Privacy
The plugin does not set a visitor cookie and does not store IP addresses, user IDs, visitor hashes, or visitor records. It uses browser local storage and sends a post ID to the site’s own WordPress REST endpoint to increment an aggregate post-meta value. Site owners should still review this behavior against their privacy policy and local requirements.
Scalability note
A single incrementing post-meta value cannot determine whether two devices belong to the same person. This version intentionally uses browser local storage to prevent repeated views from the same browser while avoiding visitor tables and per-visitor database records.