Title: too flattering Last modified: April 11, 2026 --- # too flattering * [ambientblog](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ambientblog/) * (@ambientblog) * [3 days, 5 hours ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/too-flattering/) * I was happy with the versatility of this plugin and its many options. It looks and works great! But over time I noticed it was way too flattering in the statistics, especially when I compare the results to Google’s Site Kit. It looks like Statistics count all bots as visits!?! Since I don’t know how to interpret the statistics I deleted the plugin for now. Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total) * Plugin Author [Mostafa Soufi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mostafas1990/) * (@mostafas1990) * [2 days, 6 hours ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/too-flattering/#post-18878067) * Hi [@ambientblog](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ambientblog/), * Thank you for sharing your feedback. * WP Statistics actually has a comprehensive bot detection system built in. It uses the **Matomo DeviceDetector** library with over 1000 bot signatures, plus additional filtering options you can configure under **Settings > Exclusions**: - Robot Exclusion: auto-detects bots by user-agent - Robot Threshold: flags IPs with unusually high daily hits - Referrer Spam Blacklist: filters known spam referrers * Some difference between WP Statistics and Google Analytics is expected since they use different tracking methods and counting logic. Google Analytics relies on JavaScript-only tracking with sampling, while WP Statistics tracks every request server-side. Enabling the exclusion options above helps close that gap significantly. * If you decide to give it another try, we’d be happy to help you fine-tune the exclusion settings for your site. * Best regards, * Thread Starter [ambientblog](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ambientblog/) * (@ambientblog) * [2 days, 6 hours ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/too-flattering/#post-18878075) * Since I liked the details the plugin showed, I’d love to give it another try. So I’m curious which setting I possibly missed or misconfigured. “Some difference” between WS and GA I understand, of course, but to give an example: on one single day GA mentions 92 visitors, while WS reported 1.841 visitors. That is not ‘some’ difference. I’d definitely love to hear your advice. (I did not remove Statistics, only temporarily deactivated it) * Plugin Author [Mostafa Soufi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mostafas1990/) * (@mostafas1990) * [5 hours, 45 minutes ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/too-flattering/#post-18879667) * Hi [@ambientblog](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ambientblog/), * Thank you for being willing to give it another try, and for sharing those specific numbers — that’s very helpful for diagnosing the issue. * A difference of 92 vs 1,841 strongly suggests that a significant portion of those hits are coming from bots, crawlers, and other non-human traffic that aren’t being filtered. Here’s what I’d recommend checking: * Navigate to **Settings → Filtering & Exceptions** and review the following sections: * **User Role Exclusions** Make sure at least **Administrator** is checked so your own visits aren’t counted. You can also exclude other roles like Editor, Subscriber, or even Anonymous Users if needed. * **Robot Exclusions** - **Custom Bot Exclusions** — WP Statistics already filters common crawlers using a built-in bot detection library, but you can add additional user-agent strings here if you notice specific bots slipping through. - **Robot View Threshold** — Set a daily threshold (e.g., 50). Any IP that exceeds this number of daily visits will automatically be identified and excluded as a bot. This is very effective at catching bots that aren’t in the standard signature list. * **IP Exclusions** If you know of specific IPs generating spam traffic, you can add them here. Supports both IPv4 (with CIDR notation like `192.168.0.0/24`) and IPv6 ranges. * **GeoLocation Exclusions** You can exclude or include traffic from specific countries using country codes. Useful if you’re getting heavy bot traffic from certain regions. * **URL Exclusions** - **Excluded Login Page** — Excludes login/register page visits from your stats. - **Excluded RSS Feeds** — Excludes RSS feed hits. - **Excluded 404 Pages** — Excludes 404 error page visits. - **Excluded URLs** — You can list specific URLs to exclude, with wildcard (`*`) support (e.g., `/internal/*`). * **Log Record Exclusions** I’d also recommend enabling the **Log Record Exclusions** option at the bottom of that page. Once enabled, a new **Exclusions** page will appear in your dashboard that shows you exactly what type of traffic is being filtered and why (e.g., Robot, IP Match, Robot Threshold, 404, Login Page, etc.). This gives you a clear breakdown so you can monitor how effective your filtering is and fine-tune your settings accordingly. * After enabling these settings, especially the Robot View Threshold, give it a few days and compare with Google Analytics again. Some gap will always remain since GA uses client-side JavaScript tracking (which misses visitors using ad blockers), while WP Statistics tracks server-side. But the difference should no longer be anywhere near 20x. * Feel free to share a screenshot of your Filtering & Exceptions page if you’d like us to review your configuration. * Best regards Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total) You must be [logged in](https://login.wordpress.org/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.org%2Fsupport%2Ftopic%2Ftoo-flattering%2F%3Foutput_format%3Dmd&locale=en_US) to reply to this review. * ![](https://ps.w.org/wp-statistics/assets/icon.svg?rev=3081064) * [WP Statistics – Simple, privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-statistics/) * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-statistics/#faq) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-statistics/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-statistics/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-statistics/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-statistics/reviews/) * 3 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [Mostafa Soufi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mostafas1990/) * Last activity: [5 hours, 45 minutes ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/too-flattering/#post-18879667)