iGuRu Daily Privacy Stats

FAQ

Do I need a cookie banner for this plugin?

The plugin stores no cookies and no personal data, only daily totals per post, referrer and country. In most cases this needs no consent banner. Laws differ between countries, so describe your analytics in your privacy policy, and ask a lawyer if you are unsure.

Does it work with page caching?

Yes. Views are counted by a small script in the page, so they are counted even when the page comes from a cache or a CDN. The script is marked so that WP Rocket, FlyingPress and Cloudflare Rocket Loader do not delay it.

Can I use it instead of Jetpack Stats, or alongside it?

Both. iGuRu Daily Privacy Stats runs entirely on your own server and needs no WordPress.com account, so it can replace Jetpack Stats, or run next to it while you compare. It does not import Jetpack’s past statistics: counting starts when you activate it.

Where do the countries come from?

From a header that your CDN or server adds to each request, for example Cloudflare’s CF-IPCountry. The plugin does not look up IP addresses. If your setup provides no country header, the Countries card stays empty and everything else works normally. Developers can supply the country with the dpstats_country filter.

What is the difference between a view and a visit?

A view is counted each time a post is opened. A visit is counted for the first page of a visit that comes from outside your site (a search engine, social media, a direct link). Moving between your own pages adds views, not visits.

How is “Online now” counted?

Each reader is represented by a one-way hash of the IP address and browser, made with a random secret that changes every day. The IP address is never stored, the hash cannot be turned back into it, and each hash is deleted after 10 minutes. “Online now” counts the readers seen in the last 5 minutes.

Are my own visits counted?

No. Logged-in users who can edit posts are not counted. Use the dpstats_skip_user filter to change this.

How much space does it use?

Very little: only daily totals are stored. Even a busy site with thousands of posts uses a few megabytes per year. The Data section of the Statistics page shows the current size, and lets you delete a single month.

What happens when I delete the plugin?

By default your statistics are kept, so you do not lose them by accident. To remove everything, tick “Delete all statistics when the plugin is deleted” in Statistics > Data before deleting the plugin.

Can my theme provide the view counts instead of the plugin’s script?

Yes. A theme that already counts views can declare add_theme_support( 'iguru-daily-privacy-stats' ) and call do_action( 'dpstats_record_view', $post_id, $referrer ) for each counted view ($referrer is the page’s document.referrer for the first view of a page load, and null for later ones). The plugin then adds no script.

Which hooks are available?

• dpstats_record_view (action): record a view from a theme or another plugin
• dpstats_own_counter (filter): turn the built-in counter on or off
• dpstats_skip_user (filter): decide whether the current user is counted
• dpstats_is_bot (filter): adjust bot detection
• dpstats_country (filter): supply the visitor’s two-letter country code
• dpstats_visitor_ip (filter): supply the visitor’s address used for the “Online now” hash
• dpstats_referrer_name (filter): change how a referrer host is grouped
• dpstats_alltime (filter): supply all-time totals for the “Most read” card