Facebook Like Button Count not equal to total_count in link_stat

Question

I want to display a Top 10 page in my Facebook App. Basically it's an App where you can vote for DJ Mixes. I select the top 10 urls form the link_stat table over fql and there is the problem: the values of the total_count column in the link_stat table are not equal to the values which are displayed besides the like button.

Check for example:

Like Button: http://www.beatpatrol.at/mix/1020

FQL Request: http://api.facebook.com/method/fql.query?query=SELECT%20share_count,%20like_count,%20comment_count,%20total_count%20FROM%20link_stat%20WHERE%20url%20=%20%22www.beatpatrol.at/mix/1020%22

At the time i wrote this, the like button shows 779likes and the total_count is 752.

Is there a way to get exactly the value from the like button, so that I can order on this value?

Answer 1

Note that:

What makes up the number shown on my Like button?

The number shown is the sum of:

• The number of likes of this URL
• The number of shares of this URL (this includes copy/pasting a link back to Facebook)
• The number of likes and comments on stories on Facebook about this URL

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/

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To answer your question, neither the formula of likes nor the Like Button look like being configurable. In my opinion, there is definitely no way to get the exact value from the like button.