Retiring Popular Authors

After six years, I’m retiring Popular Authors. Version 1.5.0 is the final release of my Top 10 addon that ranks your blog’s authors by page views. The plugin will continue to work, but this is the last update.

Why I’m retiring it

I built Popular Authors as a companion to Top 10. Top 10 tracked page views for posts, and this plugin rolled those numbers up by author, so multi-author blogs could give their top writers some visibility.

It never found an audience. After all these years, it has around 10 active installs. That’s not a user base, that’s a rounding error.

That functionality is moving into Top 10 Pro, where it belongs. Maintaining a plugin properly takes real time: compatibility testing, security reviews, and support. That time is better spent on Top 10 itself and the other plugins that most of you actually use.

What this means for you

If you have the plugin installed, nothing breaks. The plugin stays on WordPress.orgOpens in a new window, and your site will continue to work exactly as it does today. The final release bumps compatibility with the latest versions of WordPress and PHP, so you’re not left on a stale version.

But there will be no further updates or support after this, including security updates.

What to use instead

The popular authors feature is coming to Top 10 Pro in version 4.4, which I’m currently working on. It will be a while before that release is ready, so there’s no rush to move. Your current setup keeps working in the meantime, and I’ll announce it here when 4.4 ships.

To the handful of you who used the plugin: thank you. This one just never took off.