Title: GW Live Visitors Author: Green Website Published: September 1, 2025 Last modified: September 1, 2025 --- Search plugins This plugin **hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress**. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress. ![](https://ps.w.org/gw-live-visitors/assets/icon-128x128.png?rev=3354002) # GW Live Visitors By [Green Website](https://profiles.wordpress.org/greenwebsite/) [Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/gw-live-visitors.1.0.0.zip) * [Details](https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/gw-live-visitors/#description) * [Reviews](https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/gw-live-visitors/#reviews) * [Installation](https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/gw-live-visitors/#installation) * [Development](https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/gw-live-visitors/#developers) [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/gw-live-visitors/) ## Description **GW Live Visitors** gives you real-time insights about your website traffic directly inside the WordPress admin. See how many visitors are currently active, what pages are trending, and where your traffic is coming from — without exposing any counters publicly. Unlike heavy analytics tools, GW Live Visitors is **lightweight, privacy-friendly and focused on what really matters**: – Real-time visitor count (updated automatically)– Top pages and activity trends – Admin-only view (no public display) – Sessions stored only short-term (24h / 7d) for performance and privacy Why only 24h / 7d? Because the goal is **speed and simplicity**. Keeping session data forever would bloat your database, slow down queries, and create GDPR/privacy concerns. By limiting storage, the plugin stays fast and keeps your data footprint small — while still giving you meaningful daily and weekly insights. If you need long-term analytics, you can combine this with a dedicated tool such as Matomo, Plausible or Google Analytics. ### External Services GW Live Visitors makes use of the following external libraries and data sources: #### Leaflet.js * Purpose: Interactive map display of visitor locations. * License: BSD 2-Clause License * Homepage: https://leafletjs.com/ #### OpenStreetMap Tiles * Purpose: Map tiles for the visitor map. * License: Open Database License (ODbL) * Homepage: https://www.openstreetmap.org/ #### World Countries GeoJSON * Purpose: Country boundaries and metadata for highlighting top countries. * License: MIT License * Source: https://github.com/mledoze/countries #### IP Geolocation (optional) If geolocation is enabled in the plugin settings, the visitor’s IP address is sent to a third-party service to resolve country and approximate coordinates. Users can choose which provider to use or keep geolocation disabled for full privacy. * ipapi.co — Used to look up the visitor’s country and coordinates. Sends the visitor’s IP address on each request. Terms: https://ipapi.co/terms/ — Privacy: https:// ipapi.co/privacy/ * ipinfo.io — Used to look up the visitor’s country and coordinates. Sends the visitor’s IP address on each request. Terms: https://ipinfo.io/legal — Privacy: https://ipinfo.io/privacy-policy ### Privacy Notice By default, GW Live Visitors does **not** collect, transmit or store any personally identifiable information (PII). Only anonymous session IDs and page hits are stored locally in your WordPress database. If you enable the “Collect IP, User-Agent, country & coordinates” setting, the following applies: * Visitor IP addresses, User-Agent strings, and derived geolocation data may be stored locally in your database. * When using an external geolocation provider (ipapi.co or ipinfo.io), the visitor’s IP address is transmitted to that service in order to resolve country and approximate coordinates. * No cookies are set by this plugin. * All data remains private to your WordPress installation unless you choose to export it. It is the site owner’s responsibility to update their site’s privacy policy if enabling IP and geolocation collection. ## Screenshots [⌊Real-time visitors in the admin dashboard.⌉⌊Real-time visitors in the admin dashboard .⌉[ Real-time visitors in the admin dashboard. [⌊History page.⌉⌊History page.⌉[ History page. ## Installation 1. Upload the plugin files to the `/wp-content/plugins/gw-live-visitors` directory, or install directly from the WordPress Plugin Directory. 2. Activate the plugin through the **Plugins** menu in WordPress. 3. Go to **GW Live Visitors Dashboard** to see real-time visitors and stats. ## FAQ ### Why does the plugin only store data for 24 hours or 7 days? Because GW Live Visitors is designed for **real-time monitoring**, not long-term analytics. Storing unlimited sessions would cause database bloat, performance issues, and privacy concerns. Daily and weekly snapshots are usually enough to understand visitor activity. ### Can I keep visitor logs forever? No. The plugin deliberately avoids indefinite storage. If you want full historical analytics, we recommend using this plugin alongside a dedicated analytics tool. ### Is this GDPR-compliant? Yes. GW Live Visitors does not store personal identifiers. Sessions are short-lived and expire automatically (24h or 7d), which reduces privacy risks and keeps your database clean. ### Does this show a public visitor counter? No. GW Live Visitors is for **admin eyes only**. Nothing is displayed on the front- end of your site. ## Reviews There are no reviews for this plugin. ## Contributors & Developers “GW Live Visitors” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin. Contributors * [ Green Website ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/greenwebsite/) [Translate “GW Live Visitors” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/gw-live-visitors) ### Interested in development? [Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/gw-live-visitors/), check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/gw-live-visitors/), or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/gw-live-visitors/) by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/gw-live-visitors/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss). ## Changelog #### 1.0.0 * Initial release. ## Meta * Version **1.0.0** * Last updated: **1 year ago** * Active installations: **40+** * WordPress Version: ** 5.9 or higher ** * Tested up to: **6.8.11** * PHP Version: ** 7.4 or higher ** * Language * [English (US)](https://wordpress.org/plugins/gw-live-visitors/) * Tags: * [analytics](https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/analytics/)[dashboard](https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/dashboard/) [live visitors](https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/live-visitors/)[realtime](https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/realtime/) [stats](https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/stats/) * [Advanced View](https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/gw-live-visitors/advanced/) ## Ratings No reviews have been submitted yet. [Your review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/gw-live-visitors/reviews/#new-post) [See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/gw-live-visitors/reviews/) ## Contributors * [ Green Website ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/greenwebsite/) ## Support Got something to say? Need help? [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/gw-live-visitors/) ## Donate Would you like to support the advancement of this plugin? [ Donate to this plugin ](https://buymeacoffee.com/mattiasjohansson)