GAPPV — Google Analytics Post Page Views

A WordPress plugin that adds a GA Views column to admin list tables, showing the real Google Analytics 4 pageview count for each post, page, custom post type item, and taxonomy term archive.

No tracking code, no front-end output, no data duplication — it queries the GA4 Data API for the exact page path of each item and caches the result.

What it looks like

A sortable "GA Views" column on any post type or taxonomy list screen you enable:

• edit.php (posts, pages, custom post types) — views per post
• edit-tags.php (categories, tags, custom taxonomies) — views per term archive page

Counts are fetched one row at a time via AJAX the first time you view a list, then served from cache. A WP-CLI command can pre-fill counts in the background instead (recommended for large sites — see below).

Requirements

• WordPress with a GA4 property collecting data for the site
• PHP 8.1+
• The bcmath PHP extension (or the protobuf extension) — required by Google's protobuf library; without it every API call is a fatal Call to undefined function bccomp() error
• A Google Cloud service account with access to your GA4 property

Installation

1. Download or clone into wp-content/plugins/gappv (the Google client library is bundled — no build step needed)
2. Activate the plugin

Connecting to Google Analytics

The plugin authenticates with a service account JSON key:

1. In Google Cloud Console, create (or pick) a project and enable the Google Analytics Data API.
2. Create a service account (IAM & Admin → Service Accounts), then create a JSON key for it and download the file.
3. In Google Analytics, add the service account's email address ([email protected]) to your GA4 property with Viewer access (Admin → Property Access Management).
4. In WordPress, go to Settings → GAPPV Settings:
   • JSON Key — paste the full contents of the downloaded key file
   • Analytics Property ID — the numeric GA4 property ID (Admin → Property Settings)
   • Start Date — earliest date to count views from (posts also use their own publish date if later)
   • Cache Time (H) — hours to cache each count before refreshing (e.g. 24)

Choosing where the column appears

Also under Settings → GAPPV Settings:

• Post Types — tick the post types that should get the column. Leave all unchecked to show it on every public post type.
• Taxonomies — tick the taxonomies whose term list screens should get the column. Taxonomies are opt-in (none by default).

Term counts are matched against the term's archive URL (e.g. /category/news/), post counts against the post's permalink. Matching is exact-path, relative to the site root.

Sorting

The column is sortable for both posts and terms. Items with no stored count yet sort as zero/no value — they fill in as counts are fetched.

Pre-filling counts with WP-CLI

Fetching counts via admin AJAX is fine for small sites, but with thousands of items it's better to fill them in the background:

wp gappv populate               # process 10 posts + 10 terms missing a count
wp gappv populate --number=50   # process 50 of each

The command only processes items that don't have a stored count yet, so it's safe (and cheap) to run on a schedule. Once the backlog is filled, each run just picks up newly published content. A typical crontab entry:

# every 15 minutes, offset from the top of the hour
4-59/15 * * * * cd /path/to/site && wp gappv populate --number=25 >/dev/null 2>&1

API quota

A standard GA4 property allows roughly 1,250 quota tokens per hour / 25,000 per day, and each count lookup costs about 1–2 tokens. Each populate run makes at most 2 × --number API calls. The crontab example above peaks at ~200 calls/hour, well within quota.

How counts are stored

What	Where
Post counts	_gappv_views post meta + _gappv-{post_id} transient
Term counts	_gappv_views term meta + _gappv-term-{term_id} transient

The transient (per Cache Time) throttles API refreshes; the meta is the last known value, shown immediately and used for sorting. Uninstalling the plugin removes the settings, all cached transients, and all stored meta.

Notes

• Posts that genuinely have zero recorded views are stored as 0 and not re-queried by the CLI command (avoids endlessly retrying dead pages).
• Counts refresh when a list screen is viewed after the cache expires; the CLI command only backfills missing counts.
• If page paths change (permalink structure, slug renames), old views under the previous path won't be counted — matching is exact.

License

GPL-2.0+