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... What is RSS?An Open Post for Google
Why, every time you take over a fully functional and vibrant service, do you break it?
Yes, I’m talking about FeedBurner again.
Within ONE DAY I lost HALF of my RSS Subscribers. I did the Nine Things that should have saved subscribers the need to re-subscribe to my feed. I tried to follow every step prescribed on the FeedBurner Blog for the transition. I even updated the Feeds I Subscribe to, just to avoid any problems.
But, I still lost 1/2 of the subscribers I had.
HOW? What did I do wrong to piss Google off? Is it because I didn’t subscribe to Google Analytics? Because I haven’t signed up for AdSense for Feeds?
Please, tell me…
Looking on the replacement Blog, the Google Adsense Blog, I found No Answers, so what do I have to do?
This is almost enough for me to just throw in the towel and give up trying to supply my readers with current information using RSS and hope they find me through YOUR search engine.
Sincerely,
Joe
Have you had a drastic drop in your subscriber numbers? Have you found the answer?
17 Comments
Not to take Google’s side, but they did say somewhere in the documentation that their algorithms for determining subscribers was different than FeedBurner’s, giving lower numbers. Who’s to say that FeedBurner’s numbers are the correct ones? Have you heard from any of these supposed subscribers who were there yesterday and not today?
You know, I’d noticed lower numbers and hadn’t even realized WHY! At least now I know!
FWIW I’d noticed the lower numbers in regular FeedBurner this morning, before I even switched.
Hey Jon,
It isn’t about a small difference in the count of subs you have, I am talking in the hundreds that have gone away.
Sure, my writing isn’t that good, but it isn’t that BAD either.
And no, I haven’t heard from the subs, how would they know if they weren’t getting the feeds in the first place?
Hey –Deb,
Losing subscribers is something I try not to do, but when “G” buys things they change things (not always for the better).
Give it some time, things will (hopefully) even out.
Hey Jon,
The thing that caught my attention is the numbers dropped so drastically in just one day. It shouldn’t have anything to do with the “switch” because “G” had a redirect on the old feeds.
Like I told –Deb, give it some time and everything should even out (I Hope!)
Hey you two,
I have a question for you.
Are you subscribed to WAHI or do you have the blog in your “Favorites”?
This could be relevant!
I subscribe to the RSS using Google’s Reader (web page app).
What intrigues me is how you are putting so much faith in the posted numbers. Sure, a 50% drop in some published quantity is disturbing. But there are a lot of different ways to measure site and blog activity. I can access my stats in Google Analytics, SiteMeter, WP Stats, FeedBurner, and AdSense, and there are numerous others.
If I compare my blog traffic among these five services, four are surprisingly uniform. GA, SiteMeter, and WP Stats track closely to each other, while AdSense is slightly lower (generally 5-10%), probably because some folks use ad blockers. FeedBurner is all over the place, usually lower; sometimes FB is within a few percent above or below the others, and sometimes it is as low as 20% of what the others report. If I get a chance I’ll publish some of this analysis. It will make an interesting blog post.
That analysis was for pages served. I only have FeedBurner for subscriber reports, and those numbers have been as erratic as the FeedBurners page counts. If you want to blame some service for a change in numbers, I would at first suspect FeedBurner. This is not based on any bias toward Google, but on the above analysis of a number of reporting services.
Hey Jon,
I forgot, you are really into stats and graphs.
I use FB, statcounter, Sitemeter, crazyegg & WPstats. Guess that’s not enough to get accurate readings though,
Funny thing is, last night I checked out AdSense for feeds and they showed 25% MORE than FB and they are supposed to be the same(ish) or so I thought.
Guess I’ll have to look into GA even though I am lothe to sign up for yet another Google service.
After a dip for a couple days, the new Google Feedburner shows the same level of subscribers as before. The drop off for a couple days was no more severe nor any longer than similar fluctuations when “only” Feedburner reported the statistics. So I guess there wasn’t anything to get excited about.
Joe, how did your numbers look after a couple days?
Hey Jon,
The FB numbers seem to be close to normal, but ONLY AFTER I signed up to Google Analytics. Coincidence? Not sure, because they don’t even have a way to track RSS feeds. But, I am glad things are back to semi-normal, whatever the reason.
Joe – I can’t comment, because I’ve been using Google Analytics for a couple years.
Jon, I just started using it myself, for some reason I just don’t want to sign up to everything that google does. They know enough about me.
They even transferred my FeedBurner account to Themselves WITHOUT asking or notifying me before hand. They did it then they told me.
AND my sign in and password were NOT the same on FB & “G”. They somehow put me & me together when there should have been no real connection! (other than me having an AdSense account for the Blog (not the feed).
Everyone talks about how evil Microsoft is. We’re learning that two other behemoths, Google and Apple, are not always so beneficial. Google seems to have everyone’s data at their fingertips. Apple’s software keeps updating itself, and I have to keep removing all the iCrap from my family’s computers. In comparison, Microsoft is a befuddled giant just slogging along.
Frankly Jon, the only thing I found that was evil about MS is VISTA!
Google has it’s hands in too many things and NONE of them have to do with Searches.
Never used anything Apple, I tried it in the 80′s and didn’t like it then and never got hooked after that.
Never used Vista, but I strongly dislike Office 2007. This is what caused me to use the phrase “befuddled giant”, because so much of it seems so misguided. People have used Microsoft’s dominance in the Windows OS and in the Office suite to conclude that they have evil intentions to take over the world. Prior to Vista and Office 2007, I always argued that their dominance resulted from having developed good products, but now I think they’ve lost that edge.
Vista is not my favorite, lots of quirks. I’ve been testing Windows 7 & it looks promising. It’s a lot less cumbersome than V but as of the Beta, it doesn’t seem as intuitive as it could be. Maybe when the final release comes out.
One thing about MS being attacked by Viruses I think is because they WERE the Giant. Now that Apple is growing, they are starting to get hacked and infected on a larger scale.
Seems they always go after the big buy, just to try to prove how macho they are.