Why your RSS counts for very little
This post is about RSS feeds. As you may have seen my RSS has grown a fair bit. A few days ago, I was talking to the Noob from BloggerNoob about our respective RSS feeds.
I told him I could easily pump my RSS to 500 in one day……. and he agreed! I know this may be shocking to you (or it may not be), but RSS can be easily gamed and is not a reliable statistic. Now before I go any further I would like to assure you all that my RSS feed is entirely natural with no “fake” readers.
But if you did want to pump up your RSS feed it wouldn’t be to hard. Create a bunch of email addresses and subscribe them to the feed. There, you have a enlarged RSS feed for a while (The Noob also considers contests a fake way of enlarging your feed but I feel that the readers can unsubscribe after if they want so it’s a legitimate way of getting new readers and your blog well known).
Now, here’s the purpose of the post. The RSS feed doesn’t really count for anything. It’s a way of showing off. It can get you more advertisers but in the end the hits and number of people actually reading your website is the statistic that matters the most.
RSS feeds are a bragging right. I would relate them to penis size for men. Everyone knows that penis size is a matter of pride among many men, same thing with the RSS feed size for bloggers. I hope none of you took offense to that last statement but I wanted to illustrate my point.
Many go by the mentality that the bigger the RSS feed they have the better a blogger they are. This is true and untrue. If you have a large real following of RSS readers it is a good indication that you’re doing something right (so subscribe and let me know!). The problem is that the RSS is just as easy to game as an Alexa Rank. You can change your statistics dramatically with ease.
Please don’t use the strategy I shared here to increase your RSS feed. Natural is better, that’s the truth. Point being that you shouldn’t look at the RSS count as a definitive indication of how well a blog is doing. RSS feeds are just another statistic and should be treated like such rather than a “holy grail” of blogging (having a huge RSS count).
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The problem is that the RSS is just as easy to game as an Alexa Rank.
I disagree. RSS is much, much more easier to game.
Alexa is not as easy to game when compared against RSS Feed Count.
I disagree, just get an Alexa toolbar on a bunch of computers or use Entrecard to its fullest and watch your rank jump up astronomically.
If you visit your site repeatedly on many computers with an Alexa toolbar you’re “gaming the system” and raising your rank…
Well, Alexa is a LOT easier to game than RSS Feeds… but if you think about it, anything can really be gamed if you know how to do it. But in the long run, it’s not really going to help you…
Jay
DatMoney.com
Honestly, Alexa counts for nothing as you said Jay. I can raise my RSS a lot in a short while by driving tons of traffic (ex becoming an EC super user). But you’re exactly right, in the long run it won’t help you that much. Alexa is a bragging right same as RSS, they both aren’t a clear indication of how well your site is doing.
RSS feed count doesn’t count for anything? Lol.
How do you measure how big a blog is, then? Traffic? Easily gamed. Revenue? Easily faked, especially without screenshots. Comments on posts? Can be self done.
Quality of posts isn’t something to judge by either, otherwise a few of the bigger bloggers wouldn’t have any readers. Ultimately, you look at a combination of all statistics, meaning all of them are important - you can’t just write one off because it *could* be gamed
As I said it counts for “very little” not “nothing”. All stats can be gamed or cheated at. You’re right about that, but individually each counts for very little while combined they’re an indication. But here is why RSS is less important than say traffic (the most important in my opinion).
Traffic can be bought, that is true. But honestly to maintain higher levels of traffic is important and harder to do than say maintain a few comments per post.
Sure you can social network etc, but the real challenge is once you’ve stopped will your level of traffic stay that high?
For me traffic is also intertwined with ad sales and revenue. So the point I’m making is although they all individually count for very little (or are all important depending on how you look at it), some are more important than others and RSS is the easiest to fake in my opinion, so personally it counts for very little to me.
I for one, would not want to game my RSS numbers. Sure, I would like to have more advertisers but I really want to know how many people are actually subscribing and enjoying my blog. The more people that subscribe, the better I feel about my blog.
Exactly, but you have a viewpoint that some people don’t. Some would rather make a fast buck than have a truly successful blog.
Every time I see my RSS numbers jump I feel good about myself and my blog because it tells me I’m doing something right
I read that somewhere - If your site traffic falls drastically you don’t have to worry if you have the large RSS Subscriber base – Keep on writing they will read it thru e-mails and RSS readers for sure
Yes, but advertiser wise, your price drops if your traffic goes down. Also if it’s a fake RSS and your traffic drops you’re in trouble because its not real, so those readers are fake. Zero traffic and a low RSS is not that “healthy” for a blog.
Of course fake numbers don’t count for much. Being a liar isn’t a good trait, and if you lie about your RSS and/or traffic numbers to advertisers, you’re guilty of false advertising yourself.
But actually knowing how many RSS subscribers you have is valuable, as a marketer. It’s like knowing how many email addresses you have in your opt-in list. Of course some may be fake, and others may not respond. But that doesn’t make email marketing useless.
And in this post, you say “The RSS feed doesn’t really count for anything”. I think you mean RSS feed COUNTS or METRICS — you’re not saying RSS itself isn’t of value are you?
No, you’re absolutely right. I am stating that your RSS feed count, counts for nothing. Not the RSS service. The RSS service is a very important one for a blog and can make or break how popular the blog is.
What I’m saying is the count is invalidated a lot of the time because people can easily cheat it and may do so to attract a higher price for advertising.
If you take in deep analyse almost all kinds of stuff can be “tweaked” you can increase alexa rank easily with some work, as with the rss subscribers. TEchnorati can be gamed to. Google PR can be increased also, but this one with much more work than the others
PR is harder to increase and gives more advantages to your blog if you do it correctly. That being said the other ones you mentioned are some of the easiest factors to game. Alexa and Technorati sort of tie into your visitors. These can be increased with social networks such as SU, Digg etc. RSS is the easiest though. If you sign up emails as outlined above you’ll see your RSS skyrocket and stay there for a while.