WordPress Geekery
Posted on April 5, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 19 Comments
The more I work with WordPress the more I like it (although I still wish I could generate permanent static pages for archive purposes, hint, hint), and I have to say that I like the 2.5 update quite a bit. After the initial couple of days shakeout to figure out where they moved everything around to I find it’s generally easier to use, but the thing I like most about it is the WP-Stats plug-in, which to me is like crack-flavored crack in a fine crack sauce, because it gives me a whole bunch of stats that were difficult for me to dig out before, like which of the links out of the site people are clicking on, and because it updates almost constantly, which means I can track visitors to the site on a second by second basis, which I’ve been doing, like a rat at a feeder bar. Yes, I’m a dork.
It doesn’t offer me a complete view of my site (because I have several years of archives in Movable Type, and those archives are pretty active), but for my purposes of tracking what people are reading right now, it’s fun and useful and addictive. Between my Web stats and tracking my Amazon rankings, it’s a miracle I actually every get any writing done. So if you’re a stats addict like me, check out WP-Stats.
I’ve got version envy. I need to take the time to upgrade from WordPress 2.1 and catch up. John, are you upgrading every version for a reason, or just because you are a geek like me?
I can’t imagine how much time you could spend with your stats based on the amount of visitors you get. However, I would be the exact same way. I’d probably never come out of the office.
WP-Stats is very addictive, even for people running small sites. I used it for a few weeks before I realized how many of the section headers and little graph icons I could click on – too much information!
There are plugins for turning off comments on older entries in a batch fashion – I use Extended Comments Options:
* http://beingmrkenny.co.uk/wordpress/plugins/extended-comment-options/
If you use that and adjust your individual entry templates so that more of the dynamic stuff happens in javascript instead of PHP, you can use WP Super Cache to get most of the way towards what you want in regards to static entries. After I recommended it to you, I started using it, and love it. The best feature is that unlike wp-cache, it works with GZip compression, so that:
* logged-in users or users who have commented (and have the cookie set), get a GZipped page from WP-cache which means no queries have to run
* other visitors (search engine users and lurkers) get a GZipped static page which means no queries and no php
Very nice. You have to make sure you read the installation file, but for most users, the plugin does all the heavy lifting.
* http://ocaoimh.ie/wp-super-cache/
Oh, and while the new WordPress 2.5 admin is a lot more functional, not everybody likes the way it looks. For a more application-y feel, try Fluency Admin:
http://deanjrobinson.com/projects/fluency-admin/
Install like any other plugin (unzip to the plugins folder), activate and enjoy!
You like WPStats? Wait ’til you see Woopra!
Until such time as there’s a plugin to make a complete static archive, there’s WP Super Cache:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/
It is a drop-in replacement for WP-Cache, and it makes static copies of every page a user visits, and over time it grows reasonably large. In the event of a database crash, you could switch over to the static pages and keep going, albeit without commenting and the like.
I’m a stats monkey, too, but I’m more a Google Analytics guy, myself.
@deCadmus(#5): From Woopra’s site: “The beta version specifies a maximum of 10,000 daily page views, for us to allow the maximum number of webmasters/bloggers to use the service. If your website exceeds that number, the excess page views will be discarded. If your website frequently exceeds 10,000 page views per day, we will have to temporarily suspend your account.”
I seem to recall John quoting numbers much higher than that.
Dan@8 – I think the low page view numbers are prolly only during the beta period. Bootstrap operation, shoestring budget, etc. I expect that’ll open up later if they prove their model. Which I expect they’ll do. ;)
Dan Bailey:
Yeah, I’m clocking 1.5 million page views a month at the moment, so I might not qualify for woopra. I signed up anyway; we’ll see what they have to say.
I never good get Google Analytics to work right for me — it vastly underreported my readership (I also use the stats suite provided by my host). I still have an account but I almost never check it.
Do you mean crack-flavored crack in a fine crack sauce, wrapped in bacon?
apologies for the off-topicness of this comment. The whateverette of proposing marriage patent doesn’t seem to work for me :(
Jenny — fixed (although give it a few minutes to update).
Holy cow. I developed the same addiction to WP-stats after upgrading. It is a problem.
Hi John
I wanted to stop by and say HI :) Joe Mallozzi had a link to your blog on his which was new, must be with the new updates that he was fustrated with…
I’m looking forward to your guest spot on his blog and wanted to say that it will be the first (prob not last) of your books I will have read.
The cover of Androids Dream is quite neat who came up with it?? (sorry if you’ve answered this I have not preformed a search for that on your blog)
I will have to become a frequent visitor to your blog.
Happy writing :) and stats checking…
Penny
Hi, Penny. The cover of TAD was created by Shelley Eshkar. I was very pleased with it myself.
John,
If you like wp-stats, also try out Wassup. http://www.wpwp.org/ It provides real-time stats and you can see what users are looking a currently on your site. Like wp-stats it is good crack.
Also, if you still want to use Google Analytics, you can do it very easily with Google Analyticator http://cavemonkey50.com/code/google-analyticator/.
What exactly do you want the wordpress plugin to do?
If you just want to create a static archive, you might want to try making a local mirror of the site.
http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/creating/mirroring.html
http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/Web-Services/Website-Mirroring-With-wget/
Thankyou for this wonderful post, I am glad I found this website on yahoo.