Unreliable Feed Counter ?
This post is in continuation of my earlier posts on simple tips & tricks on blogging.
What do you see here ?
This is called a feed counter or a feed chicklet. Many of us think this feed counter is not reliable because it keeps fluctuating and doesn’t give a correct and steady count. How can one have 100+ subscribers one day and next day plummeting to just 12 ?
Yes, this counter fluctuates but it has a different purpose. And contrary to your assumptions, it does not show you total no. of subscribers of your feed.
I captured this image last Sunday from one of my 4 feeds of this blog. It is showing the count as 88. It never means I have just 88 people subscribed to this particular feed.
What it means is that last Sunday 88 people out of those who have subscribed to this particular feed have checked my blog for updates. Obviously, total no. of subscribers is much much higher.
Similarly on the same day, 43 people have checked their e-mail subscriptions of Musings and 67 have checked on combined feed. And so on. Generally this downtrend happens on weekends or holidays when people tend to go away from blog reading.
So, now you do not have to check your heart beat when you see this no. plummeting to an unexpected low. 
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Tags : Blogosphere, Tips & Tricks
Alok said,
August 29, 2009 @ 1:08 pm
This is news for me. I always thot there is a problem with my counter.
thanks for sharing.
desh said,
August 30, 2009 @ 2:22 am
one reason of tht number shifting being tht I am visiting this space after almost 7-8 months
Nandan Jha said,
August 30, 2009 @ 9:17 am
Here’s a little more detail incase you are interested further
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/08/16/why-does-my-feedburner-subscriber-count-fluctuate/
This is by Feedburner.
Mayank said,
August 30, 2009 @ 11:20 am
I never paid any attention to it. But I guess it is useful information for bloggers.
rocksea said,
August 30, 2009 @ 1:48 pm
cuckoo, just a query. I guess the plugins we use for the followup comments are the same. In that case, doesn’t it send emails when anyone comment on the post, instead of just the replies to the person who subscribed? Isn’t that a bit too much if there are several comments to a post? I have threaded comments option, which gives a user the ability to reply to specific comments. I am not sure if subscribers are interested in reading comments by all readers!
Mayank said,
August 30, 2009 @ 2:57 pm
Rocksea,
If i may reply to your question.
Mostly people prefer to read all comments on a post specially where a discussion is going on. They participate and answer like how I am doing to you. One does not have to wait. I am subscribed to this thread.
It also comes handy where you would like to know what other person has said. Sometimes cuckoo plays a game of passing the sentence. If you participate in that, you’ll understand.
Also, some of cuckoo’s posts have 100+ comments and they are worth reading.
rocksea said,
August 30, 2009 @ 3:27 pm
Mayank,
Thanks for your views
If you are in kind of a blogger-circle where you guys know each other, or are interested to, then yes. But I am sure there may be several readers who are not that keen to get into a discussion or receive all comment notifications (100+) by email. Especially when a blog has diverse visitors. Hence I have changed my settings from “subscribe to all comments” to “reply per comment” notifications.. cheers,,
Ram N said,
August 31, 2009 @ 10:48 am
Ha haa … thanks for avoiding those heart attacks on the plummeting readers in the blog
….. i always thought there was an issue in either the counter or mostly what i posted 
…. by far my chennaidailyfoto.wordpress.com is the one with largest subscriber base (don’t ask me how much, b’cos now i don’t know) and i watch these feed chicklets (like this name) going up and down frequently.
Ok, if these are the actual people who accessed their readers to check, then how do we check the actual / total subscribers on blog has?
Tarun said,
August 31, 2009 @ 8:09 pm
Blog Day greetings, Blog Friend.
lena said,
August 31, 2009 @ 10:08 pm
Feedcount always made me confused
But it never fluctuates that much actually. Just +/- 20 subscribers I guess.