How to Interpret Active Installs Charts

Introduction: Understanding the Chart Elements

Our active installs charts provide detailed insights into plugin installation trends over time. To make the most of this data, it’s important to understand the different chart elements and what they represent.

Each chart displays installation data with two types of data points:

• Most Likely Values (dark grey circles): These represent days where our calculation method found a single, definitive installation count with high confidence.
• Multiple Possible Values (light purple circles): These represent days where multiple possible installation counts were calculated, indicating uncertainty in the exact number.

For a detailed explanation of how these values are calculated, see our article How Active Installs Are Calculated.

Basic Chart Interpretation: Standard View

Let’s start with a typical chart that shows a relatively stable installation trend:

This chart shows a very typical installation curve, apart from a few peculiarities that we will discuss shortly. The Y-axis starts at 0, which means you can only see larger trends. Since the line is very flat in this case, the differences between individual days are not easily visible. This is where the “Zoom Y-Axis” option becomes valuable.

Enhanced Analysis: Using Zoom Y-Axis

By activating the “Zoom Y-Axis” option, you can see much more detail in the daily fluctuations:

With the zoomed Y-axis, the differences between individual days become very clear. However, July 10th stands out as particularly unusual – it shows a significantly higher value than the surrounding days.

Identifying False Positives

While our calculation method is generally very accurate, there are rare cases where false positive values occur. These are values that are incorrectly identified as the most likely installation count:

In this example, July 10th shows 997 active installs as a “most likely” value, but this appears to be a false positive. The value is significantly higher than the established trend and the surrounding “multiple possible values” range. Such outliers should be treated with caution. While we strive to minimize such cases, we cannot completely prevent them.

False positives can occur due to various factors in the calculation process, including rounding effects, data synchronization issues, or unusual version distribution patterns. For more details on the calculation process, see our article How Active Installs Are Calculated.

Understanding Multiple Possible Values

When our calculation method finds multiple values as possible installation counts for a given day, these are displayed as multiple freestanding light purple circles instead of a single gray circle connected to the line. Here, we’ve highlighted the corresponding days:

In this chart, days with multiple possible values are highlighted with a red border. It shows three days in which two possible installation numbers were found each.

Key insight: When you have multiple possible values, you can often determine which is more likely by looking at the established trend. In each highlighted case, one of the two points is much closer to the line of “most likely values” (the grey circles), suggesting it’s the more probable value.

This pattern recognition is crucial for interpreting charts with multiple possible values. The point closer to the established trend is typically the more accurate estimate. This is still very clear in the example shown, but there are cases where it’s not so straightforward.

Extended Periods of Uncertainty

Sometimes, our calculation method cannot find definitive values for extended periods. Here’s an example:

This chart shows a situation where no definitive values could be found for the last two weeks.

However, the multiple possible values (light purple points) still reveal a clear trend. Even without exact numbers, you can see that the installation count is likely following a consistent pattern. For example, for the last day (August 19), you can assume the lowest value is the correct one, even though six other possible values were determined for that day.

Complete Uncertainty: Pattern Recognition

In some cases, no single day produces a definitive result, but pattern recognition can still provide insights:

This chart shows a situation where no single day produced a definitive result. However, you can still identify a clear trend line formed by some of the multiple possible values, while others are more scattered. This suggests that the values forming the line are more likely to be the correct values.

Visual Enhancement: Browser Width Adjustment

A simple but effective technique for better pattern recognition is adjusting your browser width:

By reducing the browser width, the same chart becomes much clearer. The trend line formed by the multiple possible values is now much more visible, making it easier to identify the likely installation pattern.

This simple visual trick can be very helpful when analyzing charts with many multiple possible values.

Advanced Pattern Recognition: Identifying the Correct Trend Range

Some charts may initially appear confusing with many multiple possible values, but careful analysis can still reveal the most likely installation trend:

At first glance, this chart may seem confusing. However, a logical analysis reveals more than meets the eye.

The multiple possible values in the chart reveal several approximate trend ranges that could theoretically be the correct ones. However, since most of these trend ranges exit the chart upwards or enter from the bottom in the middle of the period without the chart being expanded accordingly, these trend ranges cannot be the correct ones.

Only a single trend range runs across the entire displayed period. Therefore, we can assume that this trend range is the correct one and that the plugin will likely reach the 3,000 installation count very soon.

This type of analysis demonstrates that even seemingly chaotic charts can provide valuable insights when you understand the underlying logic of the calculation method.

Limitations: When Our Method Fails

There are cases where our calculation method cannot provide useful insights:

This chart shows a plugin with so many installations that even the multiple possible values don’t reveal any pattern. Each day shows the same number of points with equal spacing, indicating that our calculation method cannot provide meaningful insights in this case.

This typically happens with plugins with over 2,000 installations or plugins with fewer than three actively used versions. For these, it’s impossible to determine even approximate values using our calculation method.

Tip for plugin developers: Release major or feature updates regularly to ensure as many different versions as possible are actively used. The more different versions of your plugin are in use, the longer we can calculate the exact number with higher installation numbers. Major or feature updates mean that the first or second part of the version number must change. If it’s just a patch update (only the third part), it won’t be counted as a separate version in the WordPress.org statistics on which our calculations are based. Read more about semantic versioning on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning#Semantic_versioning.

Conclusion

Our active installs charts provide valuable insights into plugin installation trends, even when exact values cannot be determined. By understanding the different chart elements and using the available tools effectively, you can gain meaningful insights into the performance and growth patterns of smaller plugins in particular.

The key is to look beyond individual data points and focus on the overall patterns and trends. Even when multiple possible values exist, pattern recognition can often reveal the most likely installation counts.

For a detailed explanation of how the calculation method works and why multiple possible values occur, see our article How Active Installs Are Calculated.

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