Title: Hitsteps Web Analytics
Author: Hitsteps
Published: November 19, 2013
Last modified: August 9, 2026
---
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# Hitsteps Web Analytics
By [Hitsteps](https://profiles.wordpress.org/hitsteps/)
[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/hitsteps-visitor-manager.5.95.zip)
* [Details](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/hitsteps-visitor-manager/#description)
* [Reviews](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/hitsteps-visitor-manager/#reviews)
* [Installation](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/hitsteps-visitor-manager/#installation)
* [Development](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/hitsteps-visitor-manager/#developers)
[Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/hitsteps-visitor-manager/)
## Description
Hitsteps is a real-time visitor tracking plugin for WordPress. Watch live visitors,
follow page-by-page journeys, and connect behavior to referrers, campaigns, devices,
approximate locations, and returning visitor profiles.
Add visitor tracking without editing your theme. Connect an account in the plugin
settings, save the API key, then verify real-time tracking as soon as the first
live visit arrives.
See more than aggregate pageview totals by following the journeys behind them.
Use Hitsteps to answer practical questions:
* Who is visiting my WordPress site right now, and which page are they viewing?
* Which referrers, traffic sources, campaigns, and landing pages bring engaged
visitors?
* What did a visitor view before placing an order, submitting a form, or starting
live chat?
* Which links, buttons, menus, products, and page sections receive clicks in heatmaps?
* Did traffic stop after a deployment, cache change, or outage?
#### Real-Time Visitor Tracking for WordPress
Hitsteps adds the tracking code after you connect an account and API key. The live
dashboard shows active and recent visitors without a next-day wait.
#### Live Visitors and Page-by-Page Journeys
Follow activity page by page. See current and entry pages, session duration, browser,
device, country, region, and available approximate IP-based city context.
#### Visitor Profiles and Returning Visitors
Visitor profiles connect repeat browser visits and journey history. Optional aliasing
can associate a known identifier supplied after login, form submission, chat, or
purchase. Anonymous visits do not reveal a person’s identity automatically.
#### Referrer Analytics and Traffic Sources
Connect journeys to available referrers, search engines, campaigns, landing pages,
and entry sources. Browsers, privacy controls, apps, and copied links can omit referral
data.
#### WordPress Heatmaps and Page Analysis
Click heatmaps and Page Analysis show which links, buttons, menus, products, and
page sections receive attention, helping explain where journeys stall.
#### WooCommerce and Form Visitor Context
Hitsteps can add recent visitor journeys to WooCommerce admin order emails and supported
form notifications. Integrations include Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms,
and Jetpack Contact Form.
#### More Hitsteps Features
* Live chat and support-button options.
* Bot detection and referral-spam filtering.
* Invisible tracking with no public counter badge.
* Real-visitor page-speed reporting.
* Uptime monitoring and alert channels, depending on plan and configuration.
* WordPress dashboard summaries, visitor maps, recent graphs, Online Visual live
visitor paths, and pageview widgets.
* Optional registered-user aliasing across devices when your site has the required
permission or consent.
Learn more on the [Hitsteps features page](https://www.hitsteps.com/features.php).
### External Service and Privacy
This plugin connects WordPress to the hosted Hitsteps analytics service. An account
and API key are required. It sends analytics data such as page URLs and titles,
referrers, browser and device information, IP-derived approximate location, and
interactions. Optional aliasing, WooCommerce, or form integrations can also send
identity or journey context.
Site owners are responsible for providing any notice and obtaining any consent required
for their use of analytics, cookies, identity features, chat, and related integrations.
Review the [Hitsteps Terms of Service](https://www.hitsteps.com/terms.php) and [Hitsteps Privacy Policy](https://www.hitsteps.com/privacy.php)
before enabling the service.
### Security Policy
#### Reporting Security Bugs
Please report security issues in the Hitsteps plugin through the [Patchstack Vulnerability Disclosure Program](https://patchstack.com/database/vdp/hitsteps-visitor-manager).
Patchstack can assist with verification, CVE assignment, and developer notification.
## Screenshots
[⌊Real-time visitor tracking, visitor journeys, heatmaps, chat, and uptime in one
dashboard.⌉⌊Real-time visitor tracking, visitor journeys, heatmaps, chat, and uptime
in one dashboard.⌉[
Real-time visitor tracking, visitor journeys, heatmaps, chat, and uptime in one
dashboard.
[⌊Live visitors dashboard with real-time visits, returning visitors, and pageviews.⌉⌊
Live visitors dashboard with real-time visits, returning visitors, and pageviews
.⌉[
Live visitors dashboard with real-time visits, returning visitors, and pageviews.
[⌊Live chat with visitor profile and journey context.⌉⌊Live chat with visitor profile
and journey context.⌉[
Live chat with visitor profile and journey context.
[⌊Online Visual page-by-page live visitor paths.⌉⌊Online Visual page-by-page live
visitor paths.⌉[
Online Visual page-by-page live visitor paths.
[⌊Live visitor map with traffic locations and referrer context.⌉⌊Live visitor map
with traffic locations and referrer context.⌉[
Live visitor map with traffic locations and referrer context.
## Installation
1. Install and activate Hitsteps Web Analytics.
2. Open the Hitsteps settings page in WordPress.
3. Connect an existing Hitsteps account or create one, then save the website API key.
4. Visit the site once and open the Hitsteps dashboard to confirm live visitor tracking.
5. Review visitor journeys, traffic sources, heatmaps, and configured alerts as data
arrives.
## FAQ
### How do I see live visitors on my WordPress site?
Activate Hitsteps, open Settings > Hitsteps, connect your account and API key, then
visit the site in another tab. The live dashboard shows the test visit, page, available
referrer, device, approximate location, and journey.
### Can Hitsteps track WordPress visitors in real time?
Yes. Hitsteps sends tracked page activity to its hosted dashboard as it happens.
Follow active and recent visits, page changes, entry pages, and returning visits.
### Does Hitsteps create visitor profiles and track returning visitors?
Yes. Profiles connect returning browser visits and page history. They represent
browser or session activity unless your site supplies a known identifier after login,
a form, chat, or purchase. Anonymous visitors are not identified automatically.
### Does the WordPress plugin include heatmaps?
Yes. Enable click tracking to build heatmaps and Page Analysis reports showing which
links, buttons, menus, products, and page sections receive clicks.
### Can I see which referrers and traffic sources send each visitor?
Hitsteps records available referrers, landing pages, campaigns, search-engine signals,
and entry sources. Browsers, privacy settings, apps, redirects, and copied links
can remove referrer data, making visits direct or unattributed.
### Does Hitsteps work with WooCommerce and WordPress forms?
Yes. Hitsteps can add visitor context to supported WooCommerce order emails and
integrates with Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, and Jetpack Contact
Form. Enable only what fits your privacy and consent requirements.
### Is Hitsteps a replacement for Google Analytics?
Use it alone or beside Google Analytics. Hitsteps focuses on live visitors, individual
journeys, returning profiles, referrers, heatmaps, chat context, and website monitoring.
### How do I verify that WordPress visitor tracking is working?
After saving the API key, clear WordPress or CDN caches, browse two or three pages
in a separate window, and confirm the path appears live. If not, check the API key,
consent settings, caching, content-security policy, and duplicate analytics installations.
For account-specific help, visit the [Hitsteps support page](https://www.hitsteps.com/support.php).
## Reviews
### [good to have](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/good-to-have-15/)
[Armin Nikdel](https://profiles.wordpress.org/arminnikdel/) February 20, 2024
I’ve been using Hitsteps on my website, and it’s like having a magnifying glass
for my visitors. I am only using free version of it. It shows me where people are
coming from and what they’re looking at. The live chat feature lets me talk to my
visitors directly, which is nice. It took me a bit to understand how to use everything,
but their support team was very helpful.
### [Good](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/good-6925/)
[halilkaldik](https://profiles.wordpress.org/halilkaldik/) December 8, 2021
good plug in for my business
### [Indispensable / Great Support](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/indispensable-great-support/)
[eastwestauto](https://profiles.wordpress.org/eastwestauto/) February 17, 2021
This product does an incredible job of providing me with visitor analytic data,
real-time, hourly, daily, and monthly statistics, referral code tracking for analytic
data on every inbound link we have, which is critical to know which campaigns are
performing best, page by page performance statistics, and so much more I can’t even
quantify it all. When a visitor on our site, we can follow them with a heatmap and
get inciteful data about where their mouse and eyes move throughout the page, helping
us to learn how our content is organized. We can better test the mobile responsiveness
of every page as we are given not only visitor IP addresses, but desktop vs. mobile
vs. tablet, operating system, os version, browser, browser version, whether they
are connected to a cat5 or wireless connection, powered or battery (and how much
battery the user currently has), and so much more data so we can learn about who
our visitors and customers are, when they visit, how long they visit, and a complete
history of how they navigated from a landing page to other pages on our site, and
how long they were on every page. The amount of information that we get from hitsteps,
for general visitor information and also for specific referral marketing tracking
information is indispensable to my company. As with any other good product, you
begin with free version with understandable feature limitations, and move up from
there. I have also received great support on the product without problematic language
barriers and delays. Great support and my suggestions have been very well received
also. This is a great company to work with. Final review: Outstanding value!
### [Good Analysis and Provide Insights to help my Business](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/good-analysis-and-provide-insights-to-help-my-business/)
[brayansong](https://profiles.wordpress.org/brayansong/) June 2, 2019
From my point of view Hitsteps actually does it job very well on my business. Compare
to other analytic systems, Hitsteps is really user friendly and provide me useful
insight of my customers and users. I like the heatmap feature the most, keep up
the good work, Hitsteps team!
### [Very Happy User since 2016](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/very-happy-user-since-2016/)
[](https://profiles.wordpress.org/jppl/) June 1, 2019
I have been using HS for quite a while and I`m very happy so far. The support always
is there for you. I dislike everything Google and after long searching, HS came
up. I love UI and it gives me all the information I need. I also like when they
show real website speed from the user side. There are more goodies inside such triggers
that I love too. To those who give 1-star review because HS service is not
free. I tried a free version first, but couldn`t resist supporting the
team behind. Before you give one star for something that is not free and takes your
pride “cheapy man” expectation, then take Big Bro Google, which is free, but…watch
out and take a closer look. READ IT.
### [not free](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/not-free-76/)
[B3S](https://profiles.wordpress.org/b3s/) September 3, 2016 2 replies
NOT FREE. price for a Basic Licence is 9,99USD… CRAZY
[ Read all 7 reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/hitsteps-visitor-manager/reviews/)
## Contributors & Developers
“Hitsteps Web Analytics” is open source software. The following people have contributed
to this plugin.
Contributors
* [ Hitsteps ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/hitsteps/)
[Translate “Hitsteps Web Analytics” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/hitsteps-visitor-manager)
### Interested in development?
[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/hitsteps-visitor-manager/),
check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/hitsteps-visitor-manager/),
or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/hitsteps-visitor-manager/)
by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/hitsteps-visitor-manager/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).
## Changelog
#### 5.95
* Refreshed the WordPress.org screenshot gallery.
* Reworked WordPress.org discovery copy around real-time visitor tracking, live
visitors, heatmaps, visitor profiles, and referrers.
* Added query-focused FAQs for live visitors, profiles, heatmaps, referrers, integrations,
and verification.
* Verified compatibility with WordPress 7.0.3; the WordPress.org `Tested up to`
header remains `7.0` as required for the release branch.
* Added the Online Visual live visitor-path widget to the WordPress administrator
dashboard.
* Redesigned the Hitsteps settings page with responsive, accessible controls and
high-resolution branding.
* Kept WordPress administrator notices in a dedicated area outside the branded
hero.
* Restored a high-resolution Hitsteps dashboard preview to the settings sidebar.
* Added App Store and Google Play links below the dashboard preview.
* Removed the redundant disconnected Get an API key button from the header.
* Corrected the minimum PHP requirement metadata to 5.3 to match existing plugin
syntax.
* Secured automatic account registration with HTTPS and validated returned API
codes before saving them.
* Handled registration connection failures safely, retained legacy 32-character
API keys, and stopped repopulating submitted passwords.
#### 5.94
* Refreshed the WordPress.org description, search tags, service disclosure, and
release metadata.
#### 5.93
* WordPress compatibility update.
#### 5.88
* Updated service endpoints.
#### 5.87
* Confirmed Patchstack VDP enrollment.
* Fixed CVE-2023-45268 and CVE-2023-45057.
#### 5.86
* Enrolled in the Patchstack Vulnerability Disclosure Program.
#### 5.85
* Updated PHP 8.2 compatibility.
#### 5.83
* Improved API-code validation.
#### 5.81
* Improved Safari compatibility, WordPress 6 compatibility, and contact-form visitor
detection.
Earlier release history remains available in the WordPress.org SVN repository.
## Meta
* Version **5.95**
* Last updated **23 hours ago**
* Active installations **800+**
* WordPress version ** 2.7 or higher **
* Tested up to **7.0.3**
* PHP version ** 5.3 or higher **
* Language
* [English (US)](https://wordpress.org/plugins/hitsteps-visitor-manager/)
* Tags
* [heatmap](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/heatmap/)[live visitors](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/live-visitors/)
[referral tracking](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/referral-tracking/)
[visitor tracking](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/visitor-tracking/)
* [Advanced View](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/hitsteps-visitor-manager/advanced/)
## Ratings
3.9 out of 5 stars.
* [ 5 5-star reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/hitsteps-visitor-manager/reviews/?filter=5)
* [ 0 4-star reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/hitsteps-visitor-manager/reviews/?filter=4)
* [ 0 3-star reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/hitsteps-visitor-manager/reviews/?filter=3)
* [ 0 2-star reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/hitsteps-visitor-manager/reviews/?filter=2)
* [ 2 1-star reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/hitsteps-visitor-manager/reviews/?filter=1)
[Your review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/hitsteps-visitor-manager/reviews/#new-post)
[See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/hitsteps-visitor-manager/reviews/)
## Contributors
* [ Hitsteps ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/hitsteps/)
## Support
Got something to say? Need help?
[View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/hitsteps-visitor-manager/)
## Donate
Would you like to support the advancement of this plugin?
[ Donate to this plugin ](https://www.hitsteps.com/features.php#price)