In version 1.2.0 of Novashare (released on July 27th, 2021), we’ve improved the reliability of Facebook share count requests due to their API changes.
As of May 25th, 2021, Facebook forced everyone to start using the v10.0 Graph API (source). Unfortunately, with this comes pretty significant changes regarding the accuracy of the data, and it’s primarily due to privacy:
Due to privacy concerns, counts returned by a GET /?id={url}/engagement request may not match raw counts.
Due to the change, we’ve seen that some posts no longer return data. If you were already using Novashare before, your old share counts from Facebook are safe, as we only change the data when a higher share count total is found.
Facebook has confirmed in a few bug reports that posts with fewer than 100 engagements will no longer show share counts. In our testing, we’ve also seen some posts with 100+ engagements no longer showing data.
- Facebook bug report #121469176657843
- Facebook bug report #318897266426699
- Facebook bug report #209933177463977
All social sharing WordPress plugins and service providers (such as SharedCount) rely on the Graph API to fetch share counts. This means everyone is in the same boat.
We’re communicating with Facebook and trying to get them to provide a better answer regarding inaccurate data following the May 25th, 2021 update to the Graph API. If Facebook improves this, we’ll release an update ASAP. Worst case scenario is that they don’t, but this also means every social media plugin will be limited to only showing share counts for posts with 100+ engagements.
We actually built our plugin from the ground up with this in mind. Years from now, social share counts probably won’t exist because all major platforms will have removed this capability. That’s why we’ve focused on performance and providing the best possible share experience possible.
If you have any questions regarding this, please contact us. We’re always happy to help.