Confused about dashboard/stats/account overall
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Hi. I have been trying to get visit stats happening on my blog, and that has just led to confusion, as any documentation I find seems to contradict what I have in front of me, and looking into the subject further, I just got more and more confused. It almost seems like there’s multiple ways to actually have a WordPress blog, and as such, it’s (seemingly) often talking about ‘another method’ than mine in the documentation.
Let me start by just explaining what I did to get to where I am now…
I downloaded WordPress and installed it. A blog was successfully created in my webspace (…I have a web domain, with my websites there…).
Everything is working just fine. When I want to add to my blog, I just go to the actual blog url, log in, and go to the Site Admin page from the side menu. That all works great.
But, when looking into visit stats, I get seemingly contradictory info… It SEEMS that documentation on it is saying that WordPress comes with a free stat feature already, which puts smiley faces at the bottom of (some) screen… yet I don’t have that. Further reading seems to say that I need to enter my key… which I wasn’t sure I had in the first place.
I then went to WordPress.com, to see if I could find any further info… and even there it was weird… as my user name and password were different there than what I use to log into my blog normally. I managed to get in after resetting my password, and found an admin page similar to the one in my regular blog Site Admin dashboard…. but this had stats, amoung other features. Only problem then, was it claims I have no blogs.
I’m starting to suspect there are two different types of WordPress blogs, for one thing…. One using the installer, and one that is done online via the WordPress.com site… but I have no idea.
So, some of the questions:
1) Is using the downloaded installer for WordPress the same as setting up a blog via the WordPress.com website?
2) If not, is there no connection/communication between the two (…ex. WordPress.com will not know I have a blog via the installer)
3) Are the two ways using different accounts? (Seems to be different passwords and user names)
4) Does the installed version (as opposed to WordPress.com site version) have stats built in? I can’t find them anywhere… aside from Dashboard stats about how many posts/pages I have created… not visit stats.
5) How do I get stats happening using the installed version of WordPress?
6) If a key is needed, where do I get that key? Do I use the one I just found on WordPress.com, or is that for a different (WordPress.com) account?I hope you can help me out on this. Again, the blog has been running fine, etc. I’m just now confused about the seemingly separate WordPress.com account, the lack of stats on the installed version, and the general (seeming) discrepency between the documentation I’ve been finding online vs the screens of the installed version I’m running (…references menus, etc that don’t seem to exist on mine).
BTW, I have the latest verison of WordPress. I do not have the spam block activated (haven’t put in the key), and I currently have the blog set so that search engines do not see it…. if that might be one of the factors here.
Thanks
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1.) There are two different and separate kinds of WordPress.
.com is a shared platform hosted by wp.com
.org is software you install to host you blog somewhere else
They work differently from each other:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/
2.) The two kinds of wordpress are not connected to each other.
3.) You can have an account at wordpress.com without having a blog here. You would have your own account and password with whoever is hosting your blog.
4.) You can use the api key from your wp.com account to get stats for you wp.org set-up.
5 and 6: I don’t have experience with wordpress.org so I don’t know the details about setting up the stats with the api key, but here is a support document which should help:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/api-keys/ -
If you have search engines turned off, you will get no search engine traffic, your traffic will be probably limited to friends you sent your link to, or sites that have a link to your site. So that is probably why you have no visitors. Also it take a while for search engines to index a new site.
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@1tess: Ah, I suspected that was the case. I wasn’t sure which version I had. A friend of mine is using the .org one, and thougth I was using the .com one (since I have a paid webhost for my regular site). Looks like I have the .org version then, which might explain the discrepencies in the documentation. Odd thing was, though, that I SEEMED to have an account with the .com one… or maybe it created one when I did the ‘Send New Password’ thing when my password didn’t seem to work.
As far as setting up the stats, I guess all the previous documentation I found was for the .com version. I’ll look into it further. At least now I know that there is a difference between the two, and that I need to make sure the docs are for the .org version.
Thanks for your help with that!
@auxclass: Ya, I intentionally have the search engines off for now. It’s just friends visiting my site so far, as intended. Traffic is not the problem. I just got confused with the discrepencies in the documentation for things like the stats, etc between the .org and .com version (which, up until now, I only suspected might be different). Docs are saying that WordPress already comes with a visit stats feature, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. I suspect they are talking about the .com version.
Thanks for your help.
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To be honest, we don’t really know if you are asking about a .org or a .com blog:
We need a link, starting with http://I believe that you are using .org software to host your own site.
You need to find the .org plugin for stats where you can use your api key (from wp.com).
But if you think about it, getting a plugin for stats is not so different from using any other sort of plugin on your self-hosted blog. You all can do lots of themes made online, plugins, adverts, javascript, iframes, and so on that we on .com can not do. We on .com are all sub-domains of wp.com so whatever they set up is what we can do.
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Hello again, 1tess.
It appears I’m using the .org version… as I downloaded the installer from my webhost. They offer quite a library of different apps (E-Commerce, Photo Albums, etc).
That’s news to me that the .org version isn’t as flexible with themes, etc (…although, it does make sense, now that you mention it).
One of the snags in setting up some of the recent plugins I have is that the particular theme I am using doesn’t appear to support widgets… so odd things were happening. For example, even though I could get a ‘Subscribe To This Blog’ plugin installed, actually PUTTING the button on my sidebar was a serious challenge. When I intstalled it into the page, it would erase all other menu items on the sidebar! (Luckily, deleting the plugin reversed the damage!). I think I have that sorted out now (…assuming the actual subscribing function actually works!).
I do websites myself, but much of the coding that I’m finding in the various .php files are a little over my head… so it is often frustrating when some plugins require you to add code to one of these files… as often they don’t say WHERE in the page’s coding to put it!
But, like I said, the blog has been running fine for quite some time now, with new entries being put in, visitors leaving comments, etc. This latest confusion was just introduced when I tried putting in the Subscribe button and Stats.
The Stats plugin is now installed, but I have to wait about 20 minutes to see if it actually works. They do mention a workaround if it doesn’t (…if my Theme doesn’t support some aspect of it…), but again, they say to add some code to the Theme… yet don’t specify where in the code (or what the actual file the Theme is!).
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That’s news to me that the .org version isn’t as flexible with themes, etc (…although, it does make sense, now that you mention it).
You can use all sorts of themes made for WordPress.org! Lots of them “free” online. at .com, we can only choose from the 100 themes available to us. Wp.com takes care of the technical problems for us, but we are restricted in my ways.
And this link: http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/
Our software and platform are different. Your api key and stats are from wp.com, but our assistance here on wp.com won’t help you with a self-hosted site / blog. The forum you should be asking for information is here:
http://wordpress.org/support/ -
Sorry, I did a typo there… I meant that I didn’t know that the .com version wasn’t flexible. Ya, I’m aware about the Themes for the .org version, and have been using a user-made one that I then further modified.
Also, yes, in a second forum post I made after this one, I received a bot response, saying that I should be using the .org forum (which, until then, I didn’t know existed). So, I’ve moved over to that one, now that I know of the existance of the two versions, and that I now know that I am using the .org version.
I just wanted to check here one last time, just to tie up any loose ends.
Thanks for your help. Everything (Subscribe button and Stats) is working now.
Cheers!
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