Wrong likes number via Facebook Graph API - facebook-graph-api

Question

There is couple ways to get number of page likes in graph api, and the most simple way is just get JSON response via this url, for instance:
http://graph.facebook.com/?id=http://cnn.com/
However, that method returns wrong number of likes:
{
"id": "http://cnn.com/",
"shares": 138855,
"comments": 39
}
CNN page has facebook widget that shows actual number of likes (1.4 million):
http://i.imgur.com/IQlaq.png
Is there a way to get likes number from API exactly the same as in facebook like widget on the page?

Answer 1

Your view of what these numbers are talking about is wrong:
The number 1.4 million corresponds the number of people who liked the page CNN International.
The query http://graph.facebook.com/?id=http://cnn.com/ looks for the number of times the Open Graph object at cnn.com has been shared.
Is there a way to get likes number from API exactly the same as in
facebook like widget on the page?
There's always a possiblity of lag. If you want absolute real-time you should implement a javascript event listener on the edge.create and track it yourself. Personally, I don't need things in definite real-time, so I prefer using FQL with the link_stat table.