CODEWITHSUNDEEP
facebookhtmlfacebook-graph-apifacebook-social-plugins
Daniel Scholz
Daniel Scholz

Reputation: 49

facebook like button (box_count) like count differs from Graph API

I use a like button box_count style for several articles on my page and grab the like count via the Graph API for further use. The problem is the like button on my page says 7 likes, but when I enter the exact same URL into Graph API it does not list any likes at all.

This only happens to some of my articles, not all. https://graph.facebook.com/?ids=http://www.example_url.de -> no shares/likes (actually the API only lists the ID here, nothing else) But http://www.example_url.de entered in the like Button tool says 7 likes. How can that be? Thank you very much for your help!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2463

Answers (4)

Wes Souza
Wes Souza

Reputation: 639

Ok, the numbers are differente, but there is still a problem.

I currently have a page that shows 119 likes on the button, FQL gives me:

{
  "data": [
    {
      "normalized_url": "http://wesleydesouza.com.br/prefixo9/", 
      "like_count": 80, 
      "share_count": 23, 
      "total_count": 119, 
      "comment_count": 16, 
      "commentsbox_count": 0
    }
  ]
}

So, you could say Graph should show only 80, but it shows only 13 likes:

{
   "id": "415948168442690",
   "name": "Prefixo 9",
   "picture": "http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/372843_415948168442690_618178971_s.jpg",
   "link": "http://wesleydesouza.com.br/prefixo9/",
   "likes": 13,
   "category": "Website",
   "is_published": true,
   "description": "Adicione o nono d\u00edgito de celular de S\u00e3o Paulo aos seus contatos do Google. R\u00e1pido. F\u00e1cil. Gr\u00e1tis.",
   "about": "Adicione o nono d\u00edgito de celular de S\u00e3o Paulo aos seus contatos do Google. R\u00e1pido. F\u00e1cil. Gr\u00e1tis."
}

And this reflects inside Facebook's page admin, that also shows me only 13 likes.

Upvotes: 1

Oklahomer
Oklahomer

Reputation: 906

Shawn is right. The insight document says...

Why does the count next to my Like Button not match what I see in Insights? The count next to the Like Button represents the sum of Like Button clicks, News Feed likes, News Feed comments, and shares on Facebook.

You can check the real numbers by using FQL query below.

SELECT normalized_url, like_count, share_count, total_count, comment_count, commentsbox_count FROM link_stat WHERE url ='URL'

[
  {
    "normalized_url": "URL",
    "like_count": 64,
    "share_count": 17,
    "total_count": 83,
    "comment_count": 2,
    "commentsbox_count": 1
  }
 ]

like_count indicates the number of likes and total_count is the number they are showing around the like button. Each fields are described here.

Upvotes: 2

Aaron Hayward
Aaron Hayward

Reputation: 11

The like button on your page must be using a slightly different URL that you expect.

The domains http://www.example_url.de and http://www.example_url.de/ are different in facebook's eyes. Something as insignificant as a forward slash "/" on the end of urls can make all the difference.

I'm guessing that's the issue.

Upvotes: 1

ShawnDaGeek
ShawnDaGeek

Reputation: 4150

The like button often represents more than just likes from a user click, it includes share count, send count, tagged count etc: so this number will often be different from the user like object count in graph api.

Upvotes: 2

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