How Hubbub Pro Calculates Share Counts #
Hubbub Pro doesn’t keep track of the shares on its own – the counts are pulled in from the social networks themselves.
Here’s a quick overview of the process:
- Social networks provide an API which calculates the number of times each of your post’s URLs have been shared on their platforms.
- Hubbub Pro periodically polls each API and updates the share counts for each of your posts.
- Hubbub Pro then displays that number in your WordPress Admin and, optionally, on your share buttons.
Troubleshooting Facebook Share Counts #
Unlike most social networks, Facebook calculates the share count for a particular post by combining Likes, Shares, and Comments in a proprietary way.
To check a post’s share count, enter its URL into Facebook’s Sharing Debugger.
After entering your URL and clicking “Debug”, you will receive a breakdown showing the share count that Facebook is currently calculating for your URL.
Troubleshooting Pinterest “Save” Counts #
Pinterest calculates the share count for a particular post based on the number of boards it appears on. It calls this a “save” count.
To check a post’s share count, we’ve provided the form below. Paste your post’s URL into the form.
Or, you can append its URL onto Pinterest’s public share count API.
https://api.pinterest.com/v1/urls/count.json?callback=receiveCount&url=
Add your URL after the = (equals sign) in the above URL.
Why is my share count no longer increasing? #
Once Hubbub Pro retrieves the share count for a URL, stores that number in your site’s database. Once the count is set, it will only increase even if the actual share count reported by the social network decreases.
Why would the share count decrease? This can happen due to several factors, the most common one being that many social networks will periodically locate and delete spam from their platform. Once this happens, that social network will calculate the share count for the URL again and report the new lower count.
Because Hubbub Pro never allows that count to decrease, this can make it seem like something may be wrong, particularly if a post is being widely shared. The count Hubbub reports will not begin to increase until the count being reported by the social network catches up to the count Hubbub had stored previously.
The share count reported by the social network should always be less than or equal to the share count Hubbub displays.
What if my post or site URL changes? #
Post and site URLs can change from time-to-time. The most common reason may be that a new domain name is used with older content. Or, the www. part of a domain is removed. Or, a new part of the URL is introduced, such as /recipes/. Whatever the reason, this can cause issues with share counts because social networks report share counts based on the exact URL shared.
This can make it appear as though a post’s share counts were lost, but fear not! They aren’t! They are simply tied to the previous URL. We can restore them using the Social Shares Recovery Tool found in Hubbub > Settings in your WordPress Admin.
To learn more about the Social Shares Recovery Tool, see our Doc.