Basic Stats with Plugin?

I work with the Rawvoice/Blubrry (makers of the PowerPress plugin) support team and I can tell you that limited download statistics are available from the WordPress dashboard.

For example, you can see overall total downloads, totals for the current month, previous month and totals for your last ten episodes.

The stats can be seen simply by logging into your WordPress site. There will be a one-time authentication you’ll need to do between your WordPress site and the Blubrry site. After that, it’s all set.

Thanks Shawn,

but so that im clear you are saying that I can see the total number of downloads on a particular podcast inside of WP? But i will have to have an account with Blubrry to authenticate? But i wont have to keep going back and forth just to see basic stats? Do i have that right?

If so (im very new at this) is there a way for me to know how to authenticate this after making my account?

You can see an example of what the stats look like when you first login to your WordPress site here.

When you click the “more” link at the bottom of the panel, it’ll expand within your WordPress site to also show you similar stats for your last 10 episodes.

These stats will be available to all users who have a login to your WordPress site. The stats’ll be right there in the dashboard.

In order to enable these stats, you’ll need to:

1.) Install and activate the PowerPress login.
2.) Follow the steps outlined in this support document.

You’ll only need to authenticate the Blubrry stats account once. After that, the stats will continue to update and display inside your WordPress dashboard automatically.

The Blubrry Statistics in your WordPress dashboard are merely a summary. Like Google Analytics, if you want to dig deep into the data, you need to sign into your blubrry.com account to get the deep results like clients, platforms, geographical info, etc…

Thanks everyone. The more i hear the more Im thinking that this simply wont work for me. i dont need really much detail other than how many downloads of a specific episode . I dont currently have a blubrry account but even if i did it doesnt appear that i can get how many people have downloaded a specific episode. Does anyone know of any podcasting plugins that will have the podcast and number of downloads underneath each one?

darryl505, you can get exactly how many people downloaded each episode with Blubrry Statistics. What Shawn and I are trying to explain is that you cannot view all of the statistics from your dashboard. For example, you need to sign into https://www.blubrry.com account when you want to see how your episode from a year ago is doing. Just like you need to sign into Google Anaytics to see how a page on your web site is doing.

I would recommend giving it a try, the Blubrry free basic statistics doesn’t cost anything and if you end up loving the service then you can upgrade to the pro.

Also, you can turn off the statistics from appearing in your dashboard, if you do not want your other users to see that data, then only you can see the results when you go to https://www.blubrry.com.

Does anyone know of any podcasting plugins that will have the podcast and number of downloads underneath each one?

I’m wondering with this statement if you’re actually looking for something that’ll show the number of downloads publicly on your website? Not an internal page but something that anyone who visits the site can see?

Shawn,
No i only need for it to be internal. I opened a ticket with Blubrry and they told me that the stats will only show the last few downloads from the whole website. But say for instance I have a podcast from March of last year. i would like to be able to look and see how many downloads that specific podcast had in the past year. Thats what i mean.

Thanks Angelo, If what you are saying is correct thats just the exact opposite of what Blubrry told me in the ticket i opened but perhaps they misunderstood me. They told me that the only stats i would get would be how many downloads came from the total of my website and that there would be no way to see how any one particular episode did.

darryl, if it’s the same ticket I just reviewed, your question in our contact system was about if you could limit specific users to see specific statistics from the WordPress dashboard, and the answer you got from Mike is correct, the statistics would be available to everyone on the site. There’s no way to map episodes to specific users with one statistics account.

Lets reset this conversation, I would like to find out what you are trying to achieve. There may be a better solution (such as WordPress MultiSite) that would allow you to do exactly what you want.

If you can answer the following:

1. Is this one (show/program) or does each account have their own show/program?

2. If multiple programs, are they similar? (e.g. a cooking show about pizza and another cooking show about bread)?

Depending how you answer these questions I’ll give you specific advice which may not only save you account management problems, but also save you from making SEO mistakes as well.

Angelo, This is all new to me so if there was any misunderstanding I take it as being from my side. Thank you so much.

For clarity im not trying to have a situation where only certain people can see certain archives. In our current setup everyone can see everyone elses stats so that part is already in place. We have several shows on our one station and each show has its own feed. The way we have it set up now the hosts can look at any of their individual episodes and they can see how many downloads came from that specific episode or mp3 file. The multi site does not work for us but its not needed because I dont mind everyone seeing each others stats. Here are the specific answers to your questions.

1. There are about 20 different shows on our station.

2. They are not similar at all. Each show has its own theme

I AM VERY kool with having a total stat that would show how much all of our podcasts have made but if i look at my show in particular If I want to see what last Thursday’s show did in downloads I would like the ability to see that.

ill be happy to clarify anything else as well and thank you so much in advance.

Also Angelo, From looking back at the basic stats page it looks like i can see stats for an individual episode. so now i have 2 other questions for you.

1. Are there ways to run reports with the paid version that i can download and send out to show hosts weekly or monthly?

2. Would it be a violation of terms to have both a paid and a free account. The thinking would be one login would be for hosts to log in and see how their shows are doing and the other account i would use for the advertising program that it seems that you have. I would not want everyone to be able to see those stats so id keep that login private

As far as Blubrry statistics are concerned, each episode in the system is derived by the podcast file name. So as long as all your shows use unique file names, the statistics system will keep all of those episodes separated.

Website advice
It sounds like you are using category podcasting. I will give you the warnings of doing that with more than 2 shows, you can feel free to ignore and continue using category podcasting, this is just advice…

Your answers 1 and 2 indicate that you would be best served using MultiSite. For an example, see our CEO’s web site, it is a mix of 6 different podcast shows all on either their own domain or a sub domain of https://geeknewscentral.com. He used to have all of these shows on the same site, and it created a Web SEO vacuum as well as caused damaged to the brand of each podcast. By utilizing MultSite, he was able to provide a unique brand for each podcast as well as a separate sub domain, or domain completely, which helped tremendously with Web SEO. (e.g. cooking on one subdomain and fishing on another)

You can setup multisite so all users of the network have full access to each web site, or lock ti down so they only have access to the sites they need. Furthermore, you can setup separate statistics accounts for each program, which will make your life easier as far as reporting is concerned. When you sign into the blubrry.com dashboard, you will then have a list of all 20 programs with each their total downloads, when you navigate into each program you will then see each episode with their totals. We also have a PoewrPress MultiSite specific plugin to manage access from the network level.

If you stick with one WordPress site for all 20 podcasts, programs that have to do with sports will use the same domain name as shows that talk about the weather or cooking. This may harm your SEO, and as well the landing pages each podcast will have the same branding as all the other shows, which may confuse a listener coming from iTunes (the brand on iTunes doesn’t match the brand they navigate to for example).

With that out of the way, you can just use one statistics account one one web site, every episode will be recorded with their own totals as you wanted. If your only goal is the podcasting on iTunes then it will work quite well. If you are considering a web experience just as effective as your podcast experience on iTunes, then I would consider a MultiSite approach to your network.

ive used MultiSite before. its just over kill for what i need. right now we dont have ANY of these types of totals that your speaking of. We are currently running off a drupal site and the only stats that we get are the downloads for each episode and that is working out just great for us. Thats really all that we need.

Im not trying to stop hosts from seeing each others downloads. that part just does not matter to me. With multi site i would have to set up a new site everytime we add a new show to our network. Thats just overkill for what we are trying to accomplish.

the plan was to use category podcasting. Currently nothing is set up yet. I was asking these questions to make sure that Blubrry was going to work with our needs but you are correct .. “Category Podcasting ” is what i planned to do. You were offering me a warning against that but perhaps i missed it. Did you state a reason why i shouldnt? im very open. The only thing im not open to is the multi site. If i had other goals that might be thought about but ive been down that road and its really just overkill for my needs.

With that being said is there a different reason i should not use category podcasting?