When you open a website for the first time, whether it is a blog or a company site, it requires you to expose it before you get visitors. Without exposing your site, you will probably not get any visitors and that just means business failed. Getting visitors is very important if you want to make your site successful because your site will be exposed through mouth of mouth conversation. The world is so vast and there’s such a huge population that is waiting to find a site like yours. You may think that your site sucks, but others may not :). Now if that site of yours is a blog, you would probably want to type interesting articles to gain readers, or shall I say, subscribers. All blogs are supporting the “Subscribers” count.
RSS Subscribers
Why do blogs choose to gain subscribers through an RSS feed anyways? It seems like every blog left and right wants the readers/viewers to subscribe to the feed. The first thing a blog ever wants to obtain is subscribers. There are viewers that love to hit-and-run, which means they just stumbled across your blog through a different site or through the ever popular StumbleUpon. Most of these viewers don’t give a rats ass about your blog because they just came across a good post and nothing more. This is why blogs want to gain subscribers because subscribers basically put down a subscription on your blog, which means if you publish a new post, your subscribers receive a notification before non-subscribers.
Remember that the more subscribers you have, the more popular your blog is because content is being read by some long-time readers. The more of these readers you have, the more you know that the content you provide is worth something to others 
The COUNT
This brings us to the point of the RSS Feed Count. The most popular feed count displaying little sidebar image is from Feedburner and it works great. Just take a look at my feed count . I’m sure you guys have seen blogs with this little image that shows a number. Well, this number represents the number of subscribers to your blog either through a feed reader or e-mail.
A few tips on getting the best out of your Feedburner Subscribers Counter is to place the code into your blog once you have reached a certain amount of subscribers. When I first opened Bloggin-Ads, I inserted the code into a sidebar widget before I even received 10 subscribers. I do not suggest you follow the same thing because visitors look closely on subscriber counts now. USUALLY, the higher feed count you have, the more subscribers you will have, so finding the right time to place the code into your blog is up to you. You may even want to beautify your feed count when you are ready with the FeedCount Plugin that shows numbers rather than that ugly subscriber box.
Actual Subscribers
The Feedburner subscriber stats fluctuates each and every day depending on how many of your subscribers are reading your published articles the day prior to the update. I usually see my stats changing around 2A.M. Pacific Time, but I’m not 100% that it is the reset time. Anyways, the stats are provided by Feedburner like this, so you will able to see what days you get more readers or if the post you published the day before received a lot of commotion.
There are great techniques and strategies to gain actual readers, but it all depends on how you go about. The most popular way is to put on your sidebar, a big RSS subscribe button and the feed count. Another great way is to remind your new/old visitors to subscribe to your blog if they haven’t by inserting a small snippet after your posts. Seth Godin created a very useful plugin, What Would Seth Godin Do, that places a message before or after your first post to new visitors. You can edit this message and it is much better if you do not flash it in front of a visitor’s face. Some may be annoyed, while others may not be.
E-mail Subscribers
As much as we all love the actual subscribers, e-mail subscribing seems to be gaining a lot of popularity lately. Ever since the contest between John Chow and Shoemoney, bloggers realized that this system works great to keep a non-fluctuating subscribers count. What that means is that if you receive an e-mail subscriber, he/she does not have to read the e-mail for you to gain a +1 on your count. Your counter will always be +1 as long as that e-mail subscriber stays subscribed. To this day, no one knows the truth behind how Shoemoney received +4000 subscribers in one day. Why don’t we just think about it shall we? 
Feedburner VS. FeedBlitz VS. Aweber
Receiving RSS subscribers through Feedburner is still the easiest and quickest way. 90% of all feeds are being sent to feedburner.
Used mainly for e-mail subscribers by sending out “NEWSLETTERS”, which is the same as sending e-mails with your latest posts to a subscriber.
Aweber -
Mainly used by bigger blogs that wishes to gain a huge directory of e-mails. It has more of an automated type of service, so if someone subscribes to your blog through e-mail, Aweber would send an e-mail with the information you wish to provide. The good thing is, Aweber links with Feedburner, so your stats grow too.
Out of all three services that are provided, I still prefer Feedburner. Feedburner stats is very accurate in summarizing the amount of readers you have. Apart from using it for e-mail subscribers, I would most definitely say that you will know how many subscribers are reading your posts each day.
Fakes!
We obviously know that a higher feed count means that your blog supposedly has outstanding content or popularity. This is where fake stats come out and a HUGE amount of blogs are trying to use this strategy to gain actual readers. This is called a BlackHat blogging technique and a lot of big blogs actually use this to gain popularity. It doesn’t work as much as it did before, but those blogs are lucky that they gained real subscribers.
Using e-mail subscriptions is the easiest way to cheat the system. Some bloggers make things easier by creating a fake counter image, but others actually subscribe to their own blog a few hundred to a few thousand times. Most bloggers usually get caught after a while, so I suggest not trying it.
Come Out Clean!
I have contacted a few blogs before regarding their RSS feed count and some have come out clean by admitting that it is a technique used to gain more readers, but there are still a vast majority that are just keeping things in. Remember that if you tell the truth or come out clean, you can always fix it, but if you wait too long, you ruin your own image. I stumble more of these fakers through Entrecard, so I message the owners and ask if the stats are fake. I usually receive the following reply…”My stats are not fake, they’re real subscribers”..
How It Will Hurt You
Just like what I said above, you do not want to ruin your online image. A blogger usually provides some personal information such as name and a picture, but some go further to providing an address. If you fake your stats and get caught, people will know you as a cheater. The Internet is just like reality except you stay at home to do what you do. If you were to submit a resume with your blog work, your employer may do some background check on you through Google and we all know how good Google is when it comes to searching for things :).
How To Find Fakes?
Finding fake stats is pretty easy if you know what you’re doing. I have mentioned the steps before, but I’m going to recap on it once again.
- Check the blog’s Alexa stats
- Check backlinks with DNScoop
- Check the comment counts on posts (don’t count the author comment)
- Check if the RSS counter image’s “IMG SRC” points to FeedBurner and not a self-hosted image
- Check if the blog receives actual advertisers
- Check if the comments are from Entrecard members
I added #6 in there last because Entrecard brings in a lot of these fake bloggers…:(
Don’t Assume
Although I say that a lot of blogs are fakers…you should not assume things like how I do. Bloggers hate me for assuming so many things, but I think I am right 99% of the time. Most cheaters will never ever tell you the truth and cheaters usually have a small network of buddies that will aid in his/her argument.
I’ve seen people selling services on various forums where they will give you X thousand email RSS subscribers. If you see a sharp spike in someone’s RSS traffic in a single day, I’d guess they are doing something like that.
Wow, this one is a timely post! I was about to register this blog in feedburner and check my subscriber count. But I have second thoughts. I know that this ‘nifty universe’ blog of mine still has under 10 subscribers, unlike my other blog which has around 30.
I’ll give it another month before displaying the subscribers’ count.
I have found that being evil does help alot and i have tried these fake rss subscription tactics and find it to be very helpful in gaining subscribers But do remember that you might your audiance might not like it
Interesting response from the EC community Mike. I noticed some interesting numbers on my travels through those sites.
Terrible site design, NO original content, blogspot hosted, ads and affiliates ALL over the place yet some manage between 500 and 100 subs. I call shennanigans!!!
Nice detailed post though Mike …. as always.
To me, RSS Feed Count is just another E-Peen that I am trying real hard to increase.
Doing a little RSS Feed Exchange experiment at the moment. :p
You are correct. Many bloggers create fake email account just to increase their subscription.
Thanks for the tips on ’subscribers’. Now, I get the actual picture.
Do visit my site also.
My guess is shoemoney just did email registration on one gmail account.
“joe+1@gmail.com” “joe+2@gmail.com”
the joe@gmail.com would get all the confirmation emails, but it would look like unlimited different addresses.
We shall never know.
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Well researched article with lots of good info. I’m beginnig to get leary of the goings on in the Entrecard system especially when you see blogs that have zero subscribers and cost 600 or more credits to advertise with. On the other hand I’ll come across those that have 500 RSS subscribers and a page rank of 0 with 5 links coming in. What’s up with that?
LOL! I like how you put Entrecard as number 6 lol… well, with Entrecard users, that’s how you ALSO mess up Alexa ratings.
But I’ve been reading more and more about how people are faking their RSS Feed count. Not exactly sure why people do it and have it to a ridiculous number that they KNOW they will get caught!
Hey Mike, I’m sending you an e-mail, looking for a quick sponsor for my contest.
Jay
As long as they have their Awareness API enabled under Feedburner, there is an easier way to check for fakes.
http://www.blogperfume.com/feed-analysis/
FTW.
Really useful but I can’t quite agree with ya, as a webmaster we know some visitors affect alexa a lot, and some kind of blogs rarely get comments, such as gossips, but varies a lot I have to admit, then backlinks, not all popular blogs have huge backlinks, except “make money online” type blogs … that’s just my opinion,
Ok, I’m gonna remove my RSS widget for now
I had a blogger friend of mine that had well over 10 blogs, that he built up for the past 2 years, well unfortunately he was in a accident and has lost most all his site, so he transfered all his subscribers to me which was in the thousands, and they have been dropping like flies…lol for the past few weeks over 100 a day, now they have stabled off to a few a day and it fluctuates up and down.
I hate to see the fake feedburner count too
[...] requests, but I guess mainly because he has made an image for himself. As I stated in the “RSS subscription” article, your image is very [...]
Thank for this lovely post.. Now I get to understand RSS deeper.. ;D
Very informative post, A++
About dot com moguls who want you to think their 10k+ RSS feed number is legit - if their site promotes an ebook that you can only get via newsletter signup the feedcount is likely WAY off. They’re likely using Aweber to combine newsletter signup numbers with regular RSS subscribers. Aweber provides that option, the newsletter subscriber figure is combined with the RSS subscriber number on feedcounts.
Aweber signups don’t receive copies of daily emails and they don’t use an RSS reader (and if they do, they’re now counted twice in the RSS feedcount). That means the RSS feedcount ends up being WAY overblown.
Some Aweber users who have pre-existing 50,000 business newsletter subscribers but have never used Feedburner and have never offered an RSS (or even run a blog) can get their feedcounts to START at 50,000… without a single daily reader. Don’t trust RSS fully if you see ebook offers!
Must say, the idea of artificially inflating subscriber numbers has never crossed my mind before. I don’t really see the benefit of it. As you say, you’re more likely to get caught out in the end.
In first place I must say that I’m not a “pure breed” blogger. I’m a WAH marketer who uses blogging as just another tool for branding, getting traffic, building a good reputation and last but not least, closing sales (that’s what we need to make a living online, don’t we?).
The service I use to make e-mail subscribers is Get Response, a service that I also use for newsletters and membership subscriptions. I offer an e-book to bribe new subscribers and I’m not ashamed of that because the name of the game is “get noticed and remain in focus”. With millions of blogs and websites it’s really hard to get noticed even if you have outstanding content. When somebody comes to your site for the first time for whatever reason, there’s only an slim chance to convert that visitor on a repeat visitor and the only (almost) surefire method is making him/her subscribe to whatever you offer.
That way, he/she will be reminded of your existence on a regular basis and if you treat them well, they will become customers or even friends.
count me in sir.. i am one of your 900 subscribers
hi interesting blog and the content is really nice.
I’m glad I found this post. My blog’s pretty new and I’ve already added my feed/subscriber count on my sidebar with too little subscribers on it. Got to take it out for the moment. Adding this site on my technorati faves.
Oh wow, that is something I would never have thought of doing…and seems like too much work for fake results. Good article!
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Can’t agree more.Rss feed count has certainly raised to measure the blog’s reach and no wonder all bloggers try their heart out to get their best.
email subscriptions have been more popular too.They are good in the sense that people can read the feed items right in their mail box.
But some bloggers try to sell the email ids thus sending spam mails(lot of them)…this is a problem..the only one with it…
I love the idea of subscribed via email. Its better than going to blog and read them.
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RSS Subscribers are ready traffic for your blog, as you can mostly get daily traffic through them. Am currently having around 150 subscribers but dont prefer to show the count till i get a decent number.
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I never really understood what the whole fuss about RSS burner numbers,so i never bothered with them.I just do what
i love doing taking photos and posting on a blog which is like writing in my diary.
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And if one has such a high subscriber count, then what? Is it like the most popular kid in school? I don’t get it. I mean, don’t we want quality as opposed to quantity?
I do not have alot of subscribers nor do I have alot of visitors but the few I do have are very special to me and are very important because they enjoy reading what I post and they leave comments not many but a few and a few is better then none and a few freinds is better then alot of phonies. I enjoy what I do and as long as a few freinds come to visit my blogs I shall continue to do my best and give then my best. I never was one to go out for popularity contests.
My last blog post is..Huge Contest MacBook Airs $1,000 Giveaway
I do not have may subscribers but the few I have are friends and as long as they enjoy reading what I post this is what counts. I posted another comment here but I see it did not get posted. I thought it was rather a good comment but you are the moderator. I just came back to let you know I have subscribed to your through e-mail.
My last blog post is..Huge Contest MacBook Airs $1,000 Giveaway
Really good information. I notice you can find a bunch about technorati faves, add me and i add you, etc. but for some reason finding ways to gain subscribers is hard to find. I spend some time with blog catolog and they have a cool group where you can do a fave me i fave you back type approach to the subscriber list but there is not allot of this out there. I am surprised by this as it costs nothing but time to subscribe. A subscriber train would be cool if it caught on. Thanks
I have a 1 digit subscriber count..but i do hope it gets to atleast a 3 digit someday or maybe something like mikes!
I am one of the victim..
one day he emailed me asking either my stat is correct or not?
how do I reply??
I gave him all the code for him to put on his site and walla…the code is true
Mike, assuming is good but wondering is better
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