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Hello,

Thank you for raising this topic. It’s important to note that WP Statistics does not store data in wp_postmeta. Instead, all data is kept in WP Statistics’ own tables.

To generate a list of posts based on views, it’s better to use data directly from WP Statistics. Here’s a suggested approach

global $wpdb;

$getPopularPosts = get_transient('wp_statistics_popular_article_lifespan');
$tablePages = \WP_STATISTICS\DB::table('pages');

if (false === $getPopularPosts || empty($getPopularPosts)) {
    $sql = "SELECT {$wpdb->posts}.post_title, {$wpdb->prefix}posts.post_author, {$tablePages}.* 
            FROM {$wpdb->posts} 
            LEFT JOIN ( SELECT {$tablePages}.id, SUM({$tablePages}.count) AS visit 
                        FROM {$tablePages} 
                        GROUP BY {$tablePages}.id ) {$tablePages} 
            ON {$wpdb->prefix}posts.ID = {$tablePages}.id 
            WHERE {$wpdb->posts}.post_type="article" 
            AND {$wpdb->posts}.post_status="publish" 
            AND {$tablePages}.date >= ( CURDATE() - INTERVAL 30 DAY ) 
            AND {$tablePages}.id IS NOT NULL 
            ORDER BY {$tablePages}.visit DESC 
            LIMIT 0, 20";
    
    $getPopularPosts = $wpdb->get_results($sql);

    if (is_array($getPopularPosts) && count($getPopularPosts) > 0) {
        set_transient('wp_statistics_popular_article_lifespan', $getPopularPosts, $cache_lifespan * HOUR_IN_SECONDS);
    }
}

// Note: This code is untested and might require adjustments.

I haven’t tested this code, but it should serve as a good starting point.