What's Up With Feedburner?

Flickr photo from Wesley Fryer

Stephen Downes points to this post by Wesley Fryer, "Feedburner Stats Drop After Google Account Merge"

I haven't yet merged my account and all of sudden my counts dropped 1,400 subscribers. I can't imagine that 1,400 people unsubscribed in a day?  I've noticed this from Feedburner on and off for the last few months.   At e-metrics, someone told me it had to do with them dropping counts from different news readers.

At least my drop was was big as Tech Crunch.

Stephen Downes prefers to use his own stats log:

My question: which data is right - the older, high-traffic data numbers, or the new, low-traffic data numbers. Not that Google has any (*cough* *mumble* *adwords*) motive to under-report traffic. And not that Feedburner had any (*cough* *acquired*) motive to inflate the figures. Of course, you can't know - nobody knows but Google.  And that's why I read my sever logs.

So, there's something funky before the merge!  

Last week I started looking into alternatives to Feedburner to track RSS subscribers because Chris Baskind's post, "Is It Time To Let Feedburner Burn?" made me pause and wonder whether Feedburner is still the best option for tracking subscriber growth overtime.

Chris's post gives a condensed history of Feedburner and how the need for its services has changed given the social media landscape over the past 5 years.  In the early days, it was a small company focused on making it easier for publishers to manage their RSS feeds, and for people to use them.  He summarizes the Google acquisition in February, 2007 and how the service has evolved slowly since that time.

Chris notes that FeedBurner is now Google AdSense for Feeds, and says "users is slowly being converted to the new identity. But all is not well. Users have been impatient and frustrated with Google’s lack of urgency in handling what used to be a mobile, customer-focused service."  He points to this post by Duncan Riley from December, 2008 wondering how the backend might change.   He goes on to critique problems with the quality of Feedburner's functionality.   This one point caught my eye:

RSS subscriber metrics: For some sites, this information is very useful. But with the Google/FeedBurner redirected URLs, you’re paying a high price for this service. There are other ways to measure your RSS reach.

His conclusion states:

So perhaps it’s time to let FeedBurner burn, and reconsider self-hosted feeds. This decision may not be easy or even possible for sites which are already heavily invested in FeedBurner. But for those who are willing to give up something to get something back — or for new projects — there are potential rewards for going it alone.

I took a look at some of the "A-List" bloggers with large followings who are still using Feedburner, so wondering whether Chris's post is predicting the future or not.

I tracked Chris down on Twitter (@lighterfootstep) and asked him if there were other free feed management tools available.  No, but there are fee-based services.   Here's the thread.  He suggested MINT which has a module called "BirdFeeder" which tracks your RSS subscribers.   It isn't a hosted service though and not free, but not overly expensive.

• Are you experiencing problems with Feedburner?
• Are you using something different?

Resources:

Search Engine Roundtable:  Feedburner Reports Subscribers Drops

Comments

[Jasmin Tragas]

Thanks for this post Beth. My modest number of subscribers halved a few days ago (before I merged)and I wondered if something funky was going on! I also noticed this Tweet about the troubles...

[Kivi Leroux Miller]

Yes, it's a mess. And for all the oohs and ahhs Google Analytics gets, I really have trouble with it, especially compared to how user friendly Feedburners stats were. I'm about to throw up my hands and go against my own advice about measuring everything! Let us know if you find something that was as nice and easy as Feedburner. For now I guess I'll just muddle through.

[Maddie Grant]

Totally have this problem too. NOT happy about it! If you find out a good alternative or solution or response let us know!

[Beth Kanter]

Kivi, I haven't yet as I mention above. But, then again I don't have the time to measure everything .. I only measure what is important - like RSS subscribers. So, just take a grain of salt in terms of overall trends for now.

[Account Deleted]

I transferred my feed a couple of weeks ago, knowing that my subscriber numbers were going to be wonky after that. They're back to normal now, but I don't have click/traffic stats anymore (just a link to "Configure Stats"). I have Google Analytics, but it doesn't give me outbound clicks.

Is anyone else having the same problem?

[Sue Waters]

Feed numbers were down and bounced back to normal today. It is a known issue in their Forum group. My understanding from reading the posts is that the issue has been it isn't tracking data being tracked by Google Feedfetch (which is a bit ironic = funny really). The good news is the feed is being fetched as I see the feed coming into Google Reader but it isn't being reported.

Wish I had taken a screenshot the other day that showed the Google Feedfetch missing.

[On Da Road]

Switched this week. Subscribers changed a little bit .. but I miss the traffic stats as well. I have analytics and all else Google but am starting to get a bit leary of having all my eggs in Googles basket. So I am up for low-cost alternatives 'bout now. Thanks for the post on the subject.

[Leslie Forman]

Mine has been super-volatile! That's why I keep the numbers under wraps... I do appreciate being able to see it without having to log out of my Gmail though.... Today the numbers seem to be back to normal.

[Nick Temple]

Yeah - similar problems, Beth, although it now "seems" to have righted itself. I'd also like to know of good stats packages. I've found MyBlogLog good for a daily snapshot of what's happened readers an click-wise, + Typepad's stats are a kind of Ok-ish baseline...but Feedburner's definitely been the best. The support has taken a noticeable dip, though. Google Groups are not support, IMHO.