I just included an automatic “Popular posts” list in my sidebar.
It is a very efficient way to show your visitors other popular content on your site. It is automatic and does not need you to do any manual work after you have installed it.
This is what you do:
1. Download and install StatTraq for WordPress. It is a tool that collects statistics for your site. It has a nice web based user interface and will alone give you interesting statistics for your site. Download StatTraq here. The “complete download” on that page is a version that works with WP 1.5.
Install StatTraq according to the included instructions. The main StatTraq site is here.
2. Download and install Popular Posts WordPress Plugin.
Insert this code in your sidebar.
Update:
I have also tested a plugin called MostWanted. It is another one that works together with StatTraq. It has more configuration possibilities and is the one I use on my site right now.
To get the two lists that look like mine you insert this code into your sidebar.
You find the detailed description of the parameters for MostWanted at the page where you downloaded the plugin.
eirikso 
i have tried both and none works, in popolar post i have ‘forget’ the error but on mostwanted i got Fatal error: Call to undefined function: popular()
can you help me on this ? and what (5, 30, false, true, 30) means ?
btw, it’s nice to have a “popular post today” like yours, i wonder, can i have your sidebar.php mailed ?
My initial post was difficult to understand because I did the update with info on MostWanted later on. I have now included the exact code you use if you want the kind of lists that I have. One for 365 days and one for today.
The (5, 30, false, true, 30) is explained here. It is the parameters for the MostWanted plugin.
Please also check that the StatTraq plugin is running fine by having a look at your stats: “http://www.yourblog.com/wp-stattraq”. At that adress there should be a nice GUI letting you browse your statistics.
Also check that the MostWanted plugin is activated! That is done under “plugins” in your WordPress web based interface.
hey it works 😀 thanks !
btw,
my old setting was
Most Read Post
did I miss something there ? why was your’s running any mine don’t ?
anyway, thanks 🙂
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[…] StatTraq This plugin will allow you to keep track of every hit on your public WordPress site. It seems like StatTraq gives a very low hit rate because of the wp-cache plugin that I also run. However, I run StatTraq mainly to create the “most popular” lists on my site, and as long as all posts are treated equal this works fine regardless of the fact that StatTraq does not count all visitors. I use Mint to keep track of visitors and referrers. […]
have you got a copy of the popular posts plugin? the host site has disappeared…
I would recommend that you use the MostWanted plugin. It seems more updated and is still alive here:
http://boakes.org/most-wanted
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Good post, I’ve been looking for something like this for my blog.