What are ‘file downloads’ under the Stats and Insights page?

  • Unknown's avatar
    hollywood4120 · Member ·

    On my Stats and Insights page there’s a column titled ‘file downloads’. When I highlight one day on my visitors timeline file names pop up in that column, which seems to imply that someone who visited my sight that day downloaded those files. But the files are attached to private posts, which a visitor shouldn’t be able to see. Can somebody shed some light on this for me?

  • staff-mckluskey · Staff ·

    Hi there!

    What is the post in question? We’ll have a look.

    In general, though, if your site is public, all media library files are also public, and they get indexed by search engines just like posts and pages. So someone can get a link to a specific file via a Google search result and download it directly from there (without actually visiting the site).

    Likewise, if someone has visited your site and then shares a link to the specific file with someone else, rather than a link to the page, that person will also be able to directly access the file without visiting your site and generating a View stat.

    I hope that helps :).

  • Unknown's avatar
    hollywood4120 · Member ·

    Hi!

    But I posted the pdf files in private posts. So even though my site is public, those posts were private. Are the files really still accessible to the public?
    They are court documents and I was trying to put them somewhere where only I would have access to them, but in a place where I could get to them from anywhere.

  • Unknown's avatar
    helper-heroponriki · Member ·

    Can you let us know what the URL is of the site or specific page where you’re having this problem? Once we have that information, we’ll be better able to advise.

    Thank you!

  • Unknown's avatar
    hollywood4120 · Member ·

    Yes, it’s amykgraves.wordpress.com

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    If your entire site is private, the media library will also be private. But if the site is public, the media library will also be public. The media library doesn’t have the privacy settings that individual posts do.

    I am not sure where this visitor would have accessed the link though, unless they happened to have a direct link. Did you give it to anyone, or even use the link yourself on another system?

    Also just in general: I would not recommend storing private files on your blog if you’re the only person who needs to access them.

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