I am interested in showing no. of visitors online on my websites. Though this figure is available on GA, not sure if possible to pull the same into a widget position and display. Took help of a free plugin named CBX User Online that is available from the [WordPress.org]) repository. So its quality must be checked and approved.
After adding the plugin, I found huge discrepancy between the live data by GA and CBX User Online plugin. I raised a thread over the [WordPress.org]) ([https://wordpress.org/support/topic/huge-discrepancy-between-ga-and-this-plugin/#post-16935287]) forum and received reply by the plugin author which I could not understand:
> GA using different tricks. Our plugin caches the data for specific time as set in setting.
Seeking opinion here on what is wrong or missing.
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They probably cache the results over a period of time so it’s not going to be accurate to the exact minute. IE: Once a user is tracked, that user might be counted as “online” for an hour regardless if they leave instantly. Sounds like you can change the caching period in the plugin settings page.
Keep in mind that because a plugin is available on WordPress.org does NOT ensure it is a good plugin. Only that it follows WordPress publishing guidelines which are pretty basic (code is readable, doesn’t violate trademarks, doesn’t throw fatal errors.etc).
You could ask the plugin author for more details or try a different plugin. I found “WP-UserOnline” to work well enough for a quick conference site I built a while ago.