If you’ve ever noticed a massive drop in your RSS subscribers in FeedBurner, you know what it feels like to “lose” something.
Today my subscriber count, according to FeedBurner, reads around 7000. It is normally in the low 20,000’s. Everyone experiences this with FeedBurner from me to TechCrunch and in between.
Nothing has really been lost, so there’s no need to panic. But for a day you are going to have to look at that RSS subscriber count (along with all your visitors) until FeedBurner updates again within 24 hours.
What Happens When Your Subscriber Count in FeedBurner Drops Like That?
FeedBurner checks all the feed readers it tracks each day, like Google Reader, Bloglines, and BlogRovr. When one of them is unresponsive at the exact moment FeedBurner is checking your subscriber count through any particular service, it moves on and the count doesn’t happen.
I have about 15,000 subscribers from BlogRovr, so my feeling today is that FeedBurner checked in and didn’t get a fast enough reaction from BlogRovr to make the count. So my day is spent with a FeedBurner chicklet (button) that displays a much lower subscriber count than actual.
What You Can Do About It
Nothing. Enjoy your day. Make some great posts. And wake up tomorrow to a new RSS subscriber count, usually, with the number you expect. This stuff happens in the RSS world. Most bloggers know about it and I’ve seen A-Listers can “lose” 100,000-200,000 RSS subscribers at a time.
They’ll come back. In the meantime check out your stats in FeedBurner. A cool thing is how they’ll show a lower subscriber count but your “hits” that day could be way out of whack above your subscriber numbers. That’s because all your subscribers are still subscribed and checking out your feed, regardless of what FeedBurner is saying about your subscriber count.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Seth Garrison 08.27.08 at 10:12 am
Jack
It could be something to do with the transfer of feeds to feedproxy.google
Check this out
http://blogs.howtogeek.com/howtogeek/feedburner-to-google-worst-transition-ever/
Seth
Philip Denman 08.27.08 at 11:41 am
Hey Jack,
That’s way cool - I just didn’t know that. Guess that proves I’m not so experienced just yet. But I am working on it. Being an ASC member sure helps.
Philp Denman.
Philip Denmans last blog post..Firepow Software Review
Writer Dad 08.27.08 at 11:49 am
Thanks for putting this in simple terms. I’m only on my fifth week, so my subscriber count is in the hundreds, rather than the thousands, but it dropped to twenty - four last week and I almost did a number two. It was fine the next day, but now I’ll know not to flip out.
Sid Savara 08.27.08 at 12:37 pm
Interesting. I had one day where I dropped to virtually no subscribers, and I had a similar thought. Initially I panicked - had I just offended everyone and alienated my reader base?
Fortunately it turned out to not be the case, and all is well
Sid Savaras last blog post..Why 3% of Harvard MBAs Make Ten Times as Much as the Other 97% Combined
Jon 08.29.08 at 1:24 am
Thanks Jack, that’s very useful to know
I only signed-up with FeedBurner about a month ago and am still trying to figure out what their stats mean! Maybe you could do a post on “How to interpret FeedBurner stats reports” ?
Cheers, Jon
Jons last blog post..Your Salon Website - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) basics
Simon 08.31.08 at 11:15 am
I have only been using Feed Burner for a short time and had no idea that this sort of problem occurs on a regular basis. Thanks for pointing it out.
Normal Joe 09.01.08 at 11:33 am
Yeah man, this stuff happens lol, it sucks for the little guys, but for big dogs like you, I suppose you have a few thousand to spare
Normal Joes last blog post..Why Do You Read My Blog? I Really Want To Know.
Jobin Martin 09.09.08 at 2:23 am
I have experienced the same, though the count of subcribers is very small!
Curtis 10.14.08 at 9:01 am
I am new to Feedburner and to my knowledge this has not happened to me yet. But I appreciate the heads up.