How to know the number of users for a particular wordpress plugin

2 comments

1. I did a research on the matter. And the answer is no.

   Quotes from Otto comments in this 2010
   article
   about the stats charts in every plugin’s page.

   […] the download count includes direct downloads as well
   There is no “raw count” anywhere on that version number chart. The raw count is not data that will be made available.

   For your own plugin, you can use tracking as @PeterVanDerDoes points out.

   Curiously, the plugin I used as example in the research, WordPress SEO by Yoast, is the same that does this kind of tracking. And here’s a nice discussion about it.

   I’ll reproduce the relevant part of the plugin development official guidelines:

   7. No “phoning home” without user’s informed consent. This seemingly simple rule actually covers several different aspects:

   • No unauthorized collection of user data. For example, sending the admin’s email address back to your own servers without permission of the user is not allowed; but asking the user for an email address and collecting if they choose to submit it is fine. All actions taken in this respect MUST be of the user’s doing, not automatically done by the plugin.

   • All images and scripts shown should be part of the plugin. These should be loaded locally. If the plugin does require that data is loaded from an external site (such as blocklists) this should be made clear in the plugin’s admin screens or description. The point is that the user must be informed of what information is being sent where.

   • In general, things like banner or text link advertising should not be anywhere in a plugin, including on its settings screen. Advertising on settings screens is generally ineffective anyway, as ideally users rarely visit these screens, and the advertising is low quality because the advertising systems cannot see the page content to determine good ads. So they’re best just left off entirely. Putting links back to your own site or to your social-network of choice is fine. If the plugin does include advertising from a third party service, then it must default to completely disabled, in order to prevent tracking information from being collected from the user without their consent. This is the method commonly known as “opt-in”.

   • Note that if you do include what we consider to be “advertising spam”, or attempt to game somebody else’s advertising system, then we will not only remove your plugin, but also report your code to the advertising system’s abuse mechanism as well. We do not react kindly to spam. Don’t try it.

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2. The only way I can think of that you could track something like this is by having the plugin phone-home with some stats to your own server.

   Just make sure users can select to opt-out of tracking.

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