Getting the Facebook like/share count for a given

Question

I'm using the Facebook API to get the like/share count for given URLs. The strange thing is that it seems to be quite inconsistent in returning results. For example, this page returns results:

https://api.facebook.com/method/fql.query?query=select%20total_count,like_count,comment_count,share_count,click_count%20from%20link_stat%20where%20url='http://www.groupon.com/deals/seattlehelitourscom-by-classic-helicopter-corp'&format=json

Whereas, this one does not:

https://api.facebook.com/method/fql.query?query=select%20total_count,like_count,comment_count,share_count,click_count%20from%20link_stat%20where%20url='http://www.livingsocial.com/deals/278194-sunset-kayaking-hot-chowder'&format=json

The second page clearly has a share count on it, and when I inspect the HTML of the page, the URL which is being used to share is the one I've placed into the API request above. However, the API does not respond with any count information for either number of likes or shares.

Any clues on why the API might be responding for some URLs but not for others?

Answer 1

You Can Show Facebook Share/Like Count Like This: ( Tested and Verified)

$url = http://www.yourdomainname.com // You can use inner pages

$rest_url = "http://api.facebook.com/restserver.php?format=json&method=links.getStats&urls=".urlencode($url);

$json = json_decode(file_get_contents($rest_url),true);


echo Facebook Shares = '.$json[0][share_count];

echo Facebook Likes = '.$json[0][like_count];

echo Facebook Comments = '.$json[0][comment_count];