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 consider the difference between cached data and fresh data. The main functionality of our plugin, displaying share buttons with share counts, needs to keep that information nearby for optimized performance. Otherwise we would be running 3 seconds API requests to Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc. on every pageload.
When we want fresh data, we make new requests. For the share buttons we do this at least once every 24 hours, or a little more frequently if it is a newer 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 (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, I recommend reaching out to your host to see if you can reduce the cache duration for your website.
