If it looks like your share counts do not update on the Popular Posts widget, we have an idea as to why that might be happening.
First, let’s discuss the difference between cached data and fresh data. Our plugin displays share buttons with share counts, and it seeks to keep that information nearby for optimized performance. Otherwise, it would be running 3 seconds API requests to Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc., on every page load, which would massively slow down your site.
When Social Warfare wants fresh data, it makes new API requests. For the share buttons, we do this at least once every 24 hours if it is a more recent post.
For Popular Posts, we only make fresh data requests directly to your own database. Our query uses three WP Cache parameters which exert all utilities available to us to prevent the query (and results) from being cached. But, as WordPress points out in their documentation, even these parameters are powerless against persistent object caching methods (such as Memcached) your host might implement.
In this case, it is important to note that the Popular Posts widget will still update — just not as frequently as the buttons. Instead, it would update as often as your server is set to flush its cache.
If this is a problem for you, we recommend reaching out to your host to see if you can reduce the cache duration for your website.
