readme.txt

=== Plausible Analytics ===
Contributors: plausible, DaanvandenBergh
Donate link: https://plausible.io/
Tags: analytics, google analytics, web analytics, stats, privacy, google analytics alternative, woocommerce analytics, website stats, analytics dashboard, simple analytics
Requires at least: 5.9
Tested up to: 6.9
Requires PHP: 7.2
Stable tag: 2.5.7
License: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) license
License URI: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

Simple, lightweight, privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative for WordPress with a clean dashboard.

== Description ==

Plausible Analytics is a simple, lightweight and privacy-friendly WordPress analytics plugin and a Google Analytics alternative for WordPress.

Understand your website stats, traffic, content and conversions with a clean analytics dashboard that doesn’t slow down your WordPress site or require complex setup.

No cookies. No consent banners. Fully compliant with GDPR, CCPA and PECR.

[Live Demo](https://plausible.io/plausible.io).

**You need a subscription to Plausible Analytics to track your stats. There's a free 30-day trial with no credit card required.**

We're completely independent, self-funded, bootstrapped and debt-free. We're not interested in raising funds or taking investment. We choose the subscription business model rather than surveillance capitalism. We're operating a sustainable project funded solely by the fees that our subscribers pay us.

[Visit our website](https://plausible.io/) for full details.

## Why WordPress users choose Plausible

Most analytics tools are complex, slow and difficult to use. Plausible is built to be simple, fast and easy to understand.

> “I use Plausible for traffic analytics. Privacy-friendly, no cookie banner needed, lightweight script that doesn’t slow down the page.” — [Joost de Valk, founder of Yoast SEO](https://joost.blog/astro-seo-complete-guide/#9-analytics-and-measurement)

> “I really like the simplicity of the dashboard, not bloated with countless options and tabs. I know exactly where to look.” — [Tomzur, co-founder of Kinsta](https://x.com/tomzur/status/2039317056839913824)

Here are the main reasons that WordPress users love Plausible.

### Simple analytics dashboard for WordPress

Get all your key metrics in a [single, clear dashboard](https://plausible.io/simple-web-analytics).

See traffic, top pages, referrers and conversions at a glance without digging through multiple reports or menus.

Check your traffic within your WordPress dashboard and get all essential insights on one page in one minute.

### Lightweight analytics that won’t slow your WordPress site

[Built for speed](https://plausible.io/lightweight-web-analytics), Plausible adds almost no weight to your pages. Our script is at least 54 times smaller than Google Analytics.

Your site stays fast, your visitors get a better experience, and your analytics won’t impact performance.

### More accurate analytics you can trust

Get a clearer picture of your traffic, even when visitors use ad blockers or privacy tools.

- First-party tracking option helps bypass blockers
- No data sampling or estimation
- Count more real visitors compared to traditional analytics tools
- Features a real time dashboard, that's actually real time

Your stats reflect what’s actually happening on your site, not partial or distorted data. Read about our [accuracy practices](https://plausible.io/most-accurate-web-analytics).

### WordPress analytics without cookies or consent banners

Plausible comes with [in-built privacy and compliance](https://plausible.io/data-policy) with various laws around the world such as GDPR, CCPA, etc.

- No cookies  
- No personal data collection  
- No persistent identifiers
- No cross-site or cross-device tracking  

Your site data is not used for any other purposes. All visitor data is exclusively processed with servers owned and operated by European companies and it never leaves the EU. 

You can track your traffic without showing cookie consent banners.

### Track events, content, marketing campaigns and revenue

Understand how people use your site and what drives results.

Track:

- **Engagement and behavior** — scroll depth, bounce rate and time on page  
- **Content performance** — top pages, entry pages, authors, categories and taxonomies  
- **Events (no code needed)** — outbound links, file downloads, form submissions, site searches, 404 pages and affiliate link clicks  
- **Marketing campaigns** — analyze traffic from UTM-tagged campaigns across ads, email and social  
- **Custom events** — define your own goals and conversions without writing code  
- **Revenue and funnels** — track purchases, conversion rates and customer journeys 

### Built-in WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads analytics

Plausible provides automated WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads analytics solutions to track conversions, revenue and attribution.

- Track activities like adding to cart, removing from cart, entering checkout and completing a purchase
- Track revenue and conversions automatically  
- View the full purchase funnel from product view to checkout  
- Measure cart abandonment and drop-off points  
- Understand which channels drive sales

### Shareable and client-friendly dashboards

Your stats are private by default but can be shared.

- Public dashboards via custom links  
- Private links with optional password protection  
- Team access with user roles  

### Open source and transparent

Plausible is open source software. You can inspect and verify the code on GitHub.

We’re an independent, bootstrapped company funded by our customers, not by advertising or data collection. Your data stays yours. If you're happy to manage your own infrastructure, you can self-host Plausible too.

### Smooth transition from Google Analytics

Switching from Google Analytics is simple and you won’t lose the insights that matter.

Plausible gives you all the essential metrics in a clean, easy-to-use dashboard, including real-time traffic, top pages, referrers and campaign performance. No complicated configuration, no learning curve, just clear insights from day one.

[Import your historical stats from Google Analytics](https://plausible.io/docs/google-analytics-import) and learn how to get the most out of [your Plausible experience](https://plausible.io/docs/your-plausible-experience).

## Built for WordPress

Plausible fits naturally into how WordPress sites are built and managed:

- Works with any WordPress theme
- Compatible with caching and performance plugins
- No need to edit theme files or use tag managers
- Simple setup with no coding required
- View your stats directly in your WordPress dashboard

## Google Analytics alternative for WordPress

If you're looking for a simpler and more privacy-friendly alternative, Plausible offers everything you need without the complexity.

- No overwhelming reports or menus  
- No data sampling  
- No complex configuration  
- One intuitive dashboard  
- No GDPR, CCPA, PECR, etc., compliance headaches

## Who is this for?

- **Bloggers, publishers and content creators** who want to understand which posts perform best, where traffic comes from, and how readers engage  
- **Businesses and marketers** tracking conversions, campaigns, and growth across SEO, ads, email and social channels  
- **WooCommerce and digital store owners** who want simple revenue tracking, funnels and insights into customer journeys  
- **Agencies and freelancers** managing multiple WordPress sites and sharing clean, client-friendly dashboards  
- **Product teams and startups** measuring user behavior, key events and conversion funnels without complex setup  
- **Privacy-conscious site owners** who want analytics without cookies, personal data collection or consent banners  
- **Anyone switching from Google Analytics** who wants a simpler, faster and more intuitive analytics experience  

## Features

### Easy setup and integration

- Automatically includes tracking code in your site header  
- Simple plugin settings page with onboarding guide
- Works with caching plugins and CDNs
- Proxy support to bypass ad blockers and improve stats accuracy
- Import your historical Google Analytics stats

Our product is updated several times per week and with our WordPress plugin you always have access to all the latest features

### WordPress-specific tracking

- Automatically track post authors, categories and custom taxonomies for deeper content insights  
- Enable Enhanced Measurements to track file downloads, outbound links, affiliate clicks, form submissions, site searches and 404 error pages automatically  
- Track events without coding using CSS classes directly in the WordPress editor  
- No JavaScript knowledge required — everything can be configured from the plugin settings  
- Disable tracking for admin users or selected user roles

### Ecommerce and conversions

- WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads integration  
- Revenue tracking
- Conversion tracking and funnels  
- Campaign tracking with UTM parameters  
- Integrate with Google Search Console for search queries data within Plausible dashboard

### Insights and reporting

- One-page dashboard with all key metrics  
- View your Plausible stats directly in your WordPress dashboard (you can grant access to other user roles too)
- Email and Slack reports  
- Traffic spike notifications  
- Filter and segment by any metric  

For more information: [How to setup Plausible Analytics WordPress plugin](https://plausible.io/wordpress-analytics-plugin).

## Pricing

Plausible Analytics is a subscription-based service.

- Free 30-day trial
- No credit card required
- No data selling or tracking

We’re funded by our customers, not by collecting or selling personal data.

== Installation ==

= Automatic installation =

Automatic installation is the easiest option as WordPress handles the file transfers itself and you don't need to leave your web browser. To do an automatic install of Plausible Analytics, log in to your WordPress dashboard, navigate to the Plugins menu and click "Add New".

In the search field type "Plausible Analytics" and click Search Plugins. Once you have found the plugin you can view details about it such as the point release, rating and description. Most importantly of course, you can install it by simply clicking "Install Now".

= Manual installation =

The manual installation method involves downloading our plugin and uploading it to your server via your favorite FTP application. The WordPress codex contains [instructions on how to do this here](https://codex.wordpress.org/Managing_Plugins#Manual_Plugin_Installation).

== Frequently Asked Questions ==

For more information, visit the [Plausible Analytics website](https://plausible.io/). And for answers to all the frequently asked questions, [check out our documentation](https://plausible.io/docs).

= Why should I stop using Google Analytics on my website? =

We may be biased but we don’t recommend you use Google Analytics on your WordPress site because of these reasons:

It’s owned by Google, the largest ad-tech company in the world
It’s a bloated script that affects your site speed
It’s overkill for the majority of site owners
It’s a liability considering GDPR, CCPA and other privacy regulations
It uses cookies so you must obtain consent to store cookies
It’s blocked by many plugins and browsers so the data is not very accurate
It requires an extensive privacy policy
It’s abused by referral spam that skews the data
It’s a proprietary product so you need to put your trust in Google
It worsens the user experience due to the necessity for the annoying prompts

Read more: https://plausible.io/blog/best-wordpress-analytics-plugins

= Why is Plausible not free like Google Analytics?  =

Google Analytics is free because Google has built their company and their wealth by collecting and analyzing huge amounts of personal information from web users and using these personal and behavioral insights to sell advertisements.

With Plausible, you 100% own and control all of your website data. This data is not being shared with or sold to any third-parties. Since we don't make money from targeted advertisement, we must charge a subscription fee.

Revenue from subscriptions is used to pay our rent, further develop Plausible and allow us to commit to Plausible and open source full time. There's a more elaborate explanation given here: https://plausible.io/paid-analytics-vs-free-ga

= Is there a demo available? = 

Yes, you can check out our demo at https://plausible.io/plausible.io

= How can I contribute to Plausible? = 

Check out our GitHub repository where all the development of Plausible Analytics and of our WordPress plugin are done in the open. 

Main repo: https://github.com/plausible/analytics
Plugin repo: https://github.com/plausible/wordpress

You can also blog and in other ways share with the world what you like about Plausible, what you use it for and how it helps you solve your challenges. Our growth can be attributed to people who love to use Plausible and who decide to share their Plausible experience with the world.

You can also contribute to Plausible by translating our plugin. Take a look at https://translate.wordpress.org 

= How can I contact you? = 

You can read more about us: https://plausible.io/about
Contact us: https://plausible.io/contact

== Screenshots ==

1. Plausible Analytics Simple Dashboard
2. View Your Stats in the WordPress Admin
3. Enhanced Measurements Settings
4. Plugin Settings Page
5. Goals Tracking
6. Revenue Tracking
7. Site Search Tracking
8. Form Submission Tracking
9. WooCommerce One-Click setup for Purchase Funnel Tracking

== Upgrade Notice ==

Please make sure you make a backup of your database before updating any version to ensure that none of your data is lost.

== Changelog ==

= 2.5.7 =
* Improved: the JS tracking code now contains some widely used attributes to make sure its excluded from optimization by JS minification plugins, e.g. WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, etc.
* Fixed: a timed out call to the Plausible API would lock up the admin screen for 120 seconds. Timeouts are now lowered to 5-10 seconds.
* Added: Select All toggles to toggle lists in the Settings screen.
* Improved: toggle lists showing (custom) user roles, are now divided in 2 columns.

= 2.5.6 =
* Fixed: users with a valid API token would get a notice that the Plugin token should be entered.
* Fixed: users still on PHP 7.4 would get an error when enabling/disabling the Proxy.
* Fixed: a minor XSS vulnerability in the Options API.
* Fixed: in some cases, settings could get corrupted when saving.

= 2.5.5 =
* Fixed: a typo would cause users with a valid API token to get a notice that the Plugin token should be entered.

= 2.5.4 =
* Improved: added a separate notice for Cloud users that haven't entered the Plugin token yet.

= 2.5.3 =
* Fixed: display a notice to CE users that haven't entered the Plugin token yet.
* Fixed: a critical error would occur if the entered Plugin token was invalid.

= 2.5.2 =
* Fixed: CE users still using a self-hosted version without Plugins API support would get a critical error after updating to 2.5.1.

= 2.5.1 | February 5th, 2026 =
* Migrated: this plugin now uses the new tracking code.
* Improved: the Custom Events option is now on by default.
* Removed: IE compatibility.
* Improved: PHP 8.5 compatibility (not fully tested yet)

= 2.5.0 | December 9th, 2025 =
* Improved: PHP 8.4 compatibility
* Added: Query Parameters option to Enhanced Measurements
* Improved: Search Queries now also shows on which page the search was triggered.

= 2.4.2 | December 2nd, 2025 =
* Fixed: some instances would get an Uncaught Error: call to undefined function get_plugin_data() error.

= 2.4.1 | December 1st, 2025 =
* Tested with WP 6.9
* Improved: version meta tag is no longer displayed by default, to clean up HTML.
* Added: compatibility for TranslatePress.

= 2.4.0 | May 21st, 2025 =
* Added: Cloaked Affiliate Link tracking feature.
* Improved: Custom Events, Hash based routing and IE compatibility are now grouped under a new Advanced Options section.
* Improved: Enhanced Measurements 404, File Downloads, Outbound Links, Form Completions and Search Queries are now enabled by default on new installs.

= 2.3.3 | May 5th, 2025 =
* Added: W3 Total Cache compatibility.
* Improved: WP Rocket compatibility (exclude our script from Delay JS setting)
* Added: User logged in/out status tracking.

= 2.3.2 | April 22nd, 2025 =
* Tested with WP 6.8.
* Added: Search Queries can now be enabled for Growth plans.

= 2.3.1 | March 20th, 2025 =
* Fixed: cronjob which updated JS library when Proxy enabled, didn't register properly.
* Added: support for add to cart tracking through direct links, e.g. yourdomain.com?add-to-cart=1
* Improved: added Gravity Forms compatibility to Form Completions enhanced measurement.
* Improved: only rewrite JS script's ID attribute if IE compatibility is enabled.
* Added: auto-enable customer user role tracking if EDD/WC is installed and Revenue tracking is enabled.
* Added: features not available in plan are now disabled accordingly.

= 2.3.0 | March 5th, 2025 =
* Improved: Domain Name is now validated before it's stored in the database.
* Added: Easy Digital Downloads integration, which will automatically be enabled when Ecommerce Revenue is enabled.
* Fixed: WooCommerce integration didn't work properly in multisite environments and environments with non-default permalink structures.
* Fixed: Domain Name's with more than 1 subdirectory couldn't create tokens, because it would result in a 404 in the opened window.
* Fixed: Single quotes and ampersands would break syntax in JS on WC product pages

= 2.2.0 | February 5th, 2025 =
Fixed: N/A in CE edition message wasn't shown properly when certain options were toggled.
Fixed: Create Plugin Token message was removed when View Stats was disabled.
Fixed: when toggling options, some messages in the Settings screen were duplicated.
Added: new enhanced measurement - Form Completions, tested with all major forms plugins.
Fixed: WP Rocket compatibility no longer worked, because a filter name was changed in a recent release of WP Rocket.

= 2.1.4 | September 25th, 2024 =
* Improved: when no token was entered, the API client would keep trying to verify the connection. This is now fixed.
* Fixed: When "Authors and categoreis" was enabled, HTML would break if a taxonomy name contained a apostrophe.
* Fixed: A typo in the 404 tracking script, caused it to malfunction.

= 2.1.3 | August 23rd, 2024 =
* Fixed: WooCommerce integration would cause JS conflicts with certain Gravity Forms add-ons.
* Fixed: PHP warning - undefined array key "product_id".
* Fixed: numbers using thousands separators (999+) would receive the incorrect formatting in some locales.

= 2.1.2 | August 9th, 2024 =
* Fixed: WooCommerce integration would cause JS conflicts with Raptive ads.

= 2.1.1 | July 21st, 2024 =
* Fixed some typo's.
* Fixed: WooCommerce integration would cause JS conflicts with CookieYes.

= 2.1.0 | July 21st, 2024 =

* Tested with WP 6.6
* Added: WooCommerce integration. This is automatically enabled when the enhanced measurement Ecommerce Revenue is enabled. For current users who wish to switch to the WooCommerce integration, please disable and enable the option to make sure the required goals and funnel are created.
* Added: Enhanced measuring for Search Queries.
* Added: Cloudflare Rocket Loader compatibility.
* Fixed: the plugin would crash the admin screen on instances not running cURL or with allow_url_fopen disabled.

= v2.0.9 | May 22nd, 2024 =

* Improved: Added files required for Automated Testing.
* Improved: Updated API client.
* Improved: Auto provisioning is now enabled for Plausible Community Edition (self-hosting) as well. This means a plugin token is now required when Plausible CE is used.
  * *Important!* Plausible CE v2.1.0-rc.0 or higher is required to access the plugin token feature.
* Improved: The Settings page no longer reloads when certain features are enabled.
* Improved: The Authors and Categories feature now supports custom post types.
* Fixed: Enhanced Measurements couldn't be enabled when Plausible CE was used.
* Fixed: Plausible CE users would be stuck on the onboarding wizard after updating to v2.0.8.
* Overall code improvements and bug fixes.

For the full changelog, check out [our Github repository](https://github.com/plausible/wordpress/releases).