Comments on: Why your RSS counts for very little

By: Mattaw

Mattaw — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:06:48 +0000

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.

By: Hugo Santos

Hugo Santos — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:09:56 +0000

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

By: Mattaw

Mattaw — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:10:48 +0000

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.

By: Colin

Colin — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 05:40:18 +0000

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?

By: You Subscribe I Follow - Subscribe to my RSS Feed via email and I will subscribe to yours via email and Google Reader, plus some Random Freebies! | ahkong.net

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:55:27 +0000

[...] of view regarding RSS? It is, Deimos does not fancy RSS that much as evidence by his commentaries: http://moneybites.com/why-your-rss-counts-for-very-little [...]

By: Mattaw

Mattaw — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 15:52:48 +0000

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.

By: shanker bakshi

shanker bakshi — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 15:43:40 +0000

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

By: Mattaw

Mattaw — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:36:49 +0000

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

By: SingleGuyMoney

SingleGuyMoney — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:49:25 +0000

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.

By: Mattaw

Mattaw — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:47:20 +0000

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.