the Facebook shares in a post when from over 700 to 20. what happened and can I get the true number
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My post ‘letter to my future daughter in law’ use to have over 700 FB shares bur now it’s only showing 20 shares. What happened/can it be fixed?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi there.
When someone shares one of your posts to Facebook, a note is made of the shared URL and a share count is kept for it. Previously, shares for both HTTP and HTTPS versions of your post’s URL were counted together. These two versions can be found here:
At the time your post was published, HTTP was the default version that people would share. In late 2014, we forced HTTPS for all WordPress.com subdomains. Shares of your post after this enforcement were counted towards the HTTPS count.
You can view the number of shares counted for both versions of your post’s URL via these Facebook links:
You’ll see the sharing count for HTTPS is 20 and for HTTP it’s 638.
We were previously adding both sharing counts together, which is why you continued to see the higher number in your stats. However, this caused some errors for users where sharing counts were double what they should be. Due to these errors, we’ve stopped adding the counts for both versions together and, going forward, only the HTTPS count will be shown.
I’m afraid we’re unable to change this on our end. Ideally, Facebook would fix this by migrating shares when it encounters a redirect.
Apologies for not having a solution to this for you at the moment, but I hope my explanation helped clear things up. Please do let me know if anything needs clarification or if you have questions around that.
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What is the difference in a HTTPS and HTTP? Why does my post show the lower amount? What does it mean that 638 shared an HTTP version? Was that actually a share?
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Hi there.
The S in HTTPS stands for secure. Serving your web pages through a HTTPS connection means that communication between your browser and website is encrypted, which helps to prevent data scavengers from stealing confidential information, such as your password.
Before we enforced HTTPS for all WordPress.com subdomains, in late 2014, the URL for your post was as follows:
When a web page is shared to Facebook, Facebook makes a note of its URL and keeps track of it. If we search Facebook for sharing information for the above URL, we can see that its kept track of all 638 shares:
After we enforced HTTPS, the URL for your post changed to the following:
As the URL changed slightly, with the extra S in HTTPS, Facebook identified it as a different URL entirely and began tracking sharing information for it separately. You’ll see Facebook has tracked 20 shares for that URL:
Due to the way Facebook currently tracks sharing information for unique URLs, we’re unable to change the number showing next to your Facebook counter. Ideally, this would be fixed on their end by migrating shares when they encounters a redirect. I’m sorry I can’t be the bearer of better news on this.
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