This is the Chrome Extension FAQ page. You can learn more about the Chrome Extension here.
Update July 2023:
Twitter announced the deprecation of their API to certain access tiers, which resulted in CrowdTangle losing access and the ability to serve Twitter data. You can find more information here.
Questions Covered in This Article:
Where can I get the Chrome Extension?
Is the Chrome Extension the same thing as having a CrowdTangle account?
Which URLs does the Chrome Extension work with?
Which platforms does the Chrome Extension search?
How far back does the Chrome Extension search?
What's the difference between the interactions and referrals sections?
What does "Total Follower Count" represent?
1) Where can I get the Chrome Extension?
You can find the Chrome Extension in the Chrome Browser App store, located here.
2) Is the Chrome Extension the Same Thing as Having a CrowdTangle Account?
No. The Chrome Extension is a publicly available tool that gives you the benefit of some of CrowdTangle's functionality, but it doesn't come with a full CrowdTangle account. If you try to log into CrowdTangle, you won't see any dashboards to open. You can learn more about requesting a CrowdTangle account here.
3) Which URLs does the Chrome Extension work with?
All of them! You can go to any URL on the web and use the Chrome Extension. CrowdTangle will then check the URL to see if any of the accounts, Pages, or profiles in the CrowdTangle database have shared that link.
4) Which platforms does the Chrome Extension search?
Facebook, Instagram.
In June 2023, Twitter and Reddit announced changes to their API, hence resulted in CrowdTangle losing access and the ability to serve Twitter and Reddit data.
5) How far back does the Chrome Extension search?
The Chrome Extension will show up to 500 posts for a given URL. If the URL has had more than 500 posts, it will prioritize the posts from the last 10 days in the results. If a URL has had fewer than 500 posts, you'll see all of the posts in your Chrome Extension results -- regardless of when the posts were dated.
6) What’s the difference between the Interactions and Referrals sections?
High-level:
The Referrals section at the bottom contains public posts across all the platforms and posts monitored by CrowdTangle. The Interactions section at the top, however, is an additional piece of data from Facebook, which pulls aggregated data from all Facebook posts that reference this URL, including both public and private posts.
Details:
The Interactions count at the top represents interactions on a given URL that was shared on Facebook. For Facebook, the number represents the sum of Reactions, Comments, and Shares on across all posts, both public and private. As an example, if you create a post with a URL and mark the privacy "Only Me," any interactions on that post will still update this count.
The Referrals section uses just public posts tracked by CrowdTangle, which is a subset for each platform. It shows the individual posts or tweets that mention a given URL, and provides a post preview, post date, and total interaction count for that particular post. The list is ordered by total interactions.
7) What does "Total Followers" represent?
Sum of Page Likes, etc. Each account's total is only represented once, even if the account appears multiple times. Users are not de-duplicated, so the final number may include individuals as followers of multiple accounts.