unpublished posts with downloads are being downloaded

  • k8teachesenglish · Member ·

    Hello,
    I have a post that I haven’t published yet, its scheduled to be posted in the middle of August. Yet it has 16 downloads already. How is that possible?

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • staff-heroponriki · Staff ·

    Hi there!

    While the post hasn’t been published, the media file is publicly accessible at the file URL you linked to in the post. If you are checking the file to make sure the link is set up correctly, that would register as a “view” (not a download).

    I just checked the simple-monthly-planner.pdf file directly in the browser and it loaded just fine so you’ll see one more view from today.

    I hope that clarifies things!

  • k8teachesenglish · Member ·

    This does not clarify things. There are now 17 “downloads” for this file, it’s still unpublished.

  • k8teachesenglish · Member ·

    The post has 0 views, because it is not published yet. Under the stat metric “file downloads” the file has 17 “downloads.”

    If that metric is showing “views” and not “downloads” why is that metric labeled “file downloads”????

  • staff-doublebassd · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    Those numbers would imply that people are accessing the simple-monthly-planner.pdf file directly without having to visit the post, which means that the file will gain a view while the post would not.

    As far as the downloads, our support page states:

    Take into account that every file request is recorded in your stats. The download count also increases when the file is opened directly in the browser or the download did not finish at all. Your own requests are also recorded.

    https://wordpress.com/support/stats/#file-downloads

    Depending on what browser a user is on, the pdf may auto-download when they visit the link directly, and with all files, once it is generated on the user’s browsers, it counts as a download, even when it is not technically downloaded on the user’s hard drive.

    Hope this helps.

  • k8teachesenglish · Member ·

    I still just don’t understand. How are people clicking on a link to a url that hasn’t been posted online yet?

  • staff-totoro · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    When you add images to your media library, they are not private files, so it can be the case that they can appear in Google image searches and other search engine results.

    There is not a way to set an image to be private (until it is published in a blog post or page) so if you do not wish to grant access to this document you can delete it from your media library and that will immediately invalidate all links to the content.

    Thanks!

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