As I’ve mentioned before, blogging used to be a thing where people would just go online and vent their daily encounters. Usually these type of encounters would be problems at work or things just simply just pissed you off during the day. Blogging is just not like that anymore and trying to gain a huge readership is what people really want (besides money). What am I really talking about might you ask? I’m talking about this huge craze over who has the highest RSS readership count. It’s just so important to some bloggers that they go beyond the edge of the cliff to get it going.
What is RSS?
I’m sure there are a few of you that are very new to reading articles online and don’t realize what this little logo actually means 
. What the heck is that orange block with 3 wave-like bars? The answer is more simpler than many of you guys think.
RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.
Why do people use RSS?
So what exactly does that mean? It means that this small little code takes the latest headlines of your blog and downloads to the viewers computer for quick viewing. Now RSS does stand for “Rich Site Summary”, but it became Real-Time Simple Syndication after the release of RSS 2.0. The viewer basically saves a lot of time by not needing to visit your site. Instead the RSS reader brings the content through either your browser or a feed reader site/program. You may check out bloglines or netvibes for this type of service.
The “OH SO POPULAR” feedburner feed count
Feedburner is the latest technology for site/blog owners to check on their daily RSS feed subscribers. What feedburner also includes is a “feed count” similar to this . Most of you probably notice this little nifty counter at the top right of my blog right under my header. What this counter shows is my daily feed readers count usually from the day before, but I haven’t really gotten the chance to understand when the counter takes the number. Once the number is up for the day, it stays until sometime during the night and then changes again. It has been brought to my attention that blogs love to put these counters up to show-off some type of status and viewers actually love seeing an high count rate. Of course there are some smaller blogs here and there that put this counter even when there are about 10 readers, but that isn’t the whole point of this counter is it?
RSS Count = Understatement
Bloggers have been using this count as a way to trick viewers into subscribing. Haven’t some of you guys been wondering how certain blogs have such high RSS feed counts, but have no content or value on the blog whatsoever? The problem is simple and it is actually more simple to conduct such a fraudulent scam on the RSS count. If you guys are a frequent reader on John Cow’s blog, I’m sure you checked out their post about “RSSxplosion“. It seems like some have found a loophole towards feedburner’s RSS count meter. What RSSxplosion does is actually sign up to a client’s rss feed countless number of times through e-mail. Obviously the e-mail feeds are different from regular feeds because e-mail feeds stay on the count every single day.
How do I catch these frauds?
When there is a simple way to trick a system, there is also a simple way to catch it. By doing some small research through sites you probably use daily, you will be able to catch blogs that tricks readers into thinking the blog is “POPULAR”. Here are my steps that I take to check if a blog is in fact using fraud techniques:
- Check if the blog provides some type of valuable content to deserve the # on the RSS counter.
- Check for comments on posts. Make sure there is an decent amount similar to a 1:1 ratio (comment:reader)
- Check backlinks to this blog through google by typing “blog:(blogurl)” into the search box. For example “blog:bloggin-ads.com”. This should show up with some results.
- Lastly, my favorite part of this research is to check Alexa where I type in the blog URL and compare the “alexa spike” with a blog with similar RSS feed count. For example, take a look at the image below:
I would also like you guys to check out Phillip’s success in catching a blog trying to pull a very huge RSS count scam. Although this method is pretty effective, you may also want to back it up with details before running your mouth. Not all blog owners are conducting these sneaky moves…
Please note that this post wasn’t meant to intentionally teach people how to trick the system, but it is to show that there are these type of people out there and you must know the real from the fake.
I mentioned this technique in my Secret Guide to Social Blogging Success series. The trick is to make any growth look fast but natural and to coordinate RSS, comment and traffic growth simultaneously. It’s evil black/gray hat stuff but it goes on a lot more that most realize.
Frank C’s last blog post..Blog Review: The NextPost
I don’t know if checking in Google helps. According to it I have 1 back link. According to Technorati I have over 100. Which one do I trust?
Mike White’s last blog post..The Personas of Saphrym
Frank C » LOL! I should take a look at this guide
I’m not sure what to think about it though. I mean it’s great you’re providing tips for success, but at the same time this is considered fraud.
Mike White » Yea Google does have problems when searching for backlinks, but I didn’t even know Technorati does it. All I see in Technorati is “Blog Reactions”, which I don’t think is a backlink, but I may be wrong.
Blog reactions are backlinks in the blog community.
Mike White’s last blog post..The Personas of Saphrym
Great article….I am sure a lot of readers aren’t familiar with RSS at all.
BloggingEssentials’s last blog post..Being Social is Critical for Newbies
Yes, it is black hat to game your RSS count, but when you’ve got 2 of the top 5 “make money online” bloggers doing it, who can argue with ’success’.
The thing is that everything I mention in that series is something that one or more of all of the top 45n5 list MMO bloggers have done at one point or another.
Frank C’s last blog post..Blog Review: The NextPost
I could of swore RSS = Really Simple Syndication. At least that’s what they taught me in school.
Slam Blogger’s last blog post..Slam Blogger : Victim Of Chow Spam!
Frank; hmmm interesting…I really didn’t think of it that way. Would you like to do a post about this? I’m sure readers will be very interested in that type of info.
Slam Blogger; they teach that in school!?
-Mike
From Wikipedia:
The initials “RSS” are used to refer to the following formats:
* Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
* RDF Site Summary (RSS 1.0 and RSS 0.90)
* Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91)
And in today’s age, it’d be the 2.0 version. But you’re still both right since a version number wasn’t mentioned.
Mike White’s last blog post..The Personas of Saphrym
@Slam Blogger:
You attended school?
(Just a joke. And you know I owe it to you.)
Mike White’s last blog post..The Personas of Saphrym
Tehe… <—-Wasn’t that a gay thing to say?
Yes, I did attend school, but then promptly dropped out, then I returned… Now, I’m taking a quarter off, to… realign my perceptions.
Oh, and I was right, because nobody uses older versions now do they? Even if a version number wasn’t mentioned, you should still know what you’re talking about before you press submit
Mike, ..uh, both of you, learn something. Read my post Horrible Content = Horrible Results.
Lol. Fun times in the comment form of Blogging-ads.com
Slam Blogger’s last blog post..Temporary Post Used For Style Detection (4ed2189b-fd9c-4794-999f-dd57aec7cdec - 3bfe001a-32de-4114-a6b4-4005b770f6d7)
Hi Mike,
That was the point of my Secrets of Social Blogging Success series, to point out what was going on behind the scenes but without naming names.
But as for the RSS counts, John Chow and Shoemoney did certainly resort to automated methods to greatly inflated their counts in a short amount of time.
Frank C’s last blog post..Blog Review: Toast & Egg & Me
Interesting - I wondered why so many bloggers urge you to sign up to their RSS via email. So, now I know.
CatherineL’s last blog post..And Modest Business Founder Of The Year Award Goes To …….
Frank C; we still can’t assume things even when it really seems like it is true.
CatherineL; Yup, I also ask for e-mail subscriptions too. I mean it’s pretty much fine to do that, but not when there are tons of e-mails that are the same.
No, John Chow SPAMMED his own feed to get his feed count that high! (Hehe…)
I can’t see why you would want to. Its like cheating at a game the results are fake… You aren’t impressing anyone
Dale
http://dzrbenson.com/blog/
@Mike - In spite of his other flaws, Chow is pretty straight forward about admitting when he does ‘evil’ things even if he doesn’t always give all the details. Most of it is stuff out of the basic blackhat playbook anyway. Some of it is so commonplace it could hardly be considered truly blackhat anymore.
@Dale - Things like this happen all the time in the publishing business, music industry and others. Those who’re greedy and/or stupid get at it get caught. Those who’re discrete and smart rarely get exposed.
Frank C’s last blog post..BlogRush, BlogFlush - A BlogRush Sucks Update
[...] the past, routing your RSS via Email subscribers through Aweber meant those RSS subscribers would not show up in your Feedburner count. This is largely a bragging rights issue, but not entirely. Studies have shown your readers respond [...]
[...] the past, routing your RSS via Email subscribers through Aweber meant those RSS subscribers would not show up in your Feedburner count. This is largely a bragging rights issue, but not entirely. Studies have shown your readers respond [...]
I haven’t heard about that happening before.
I just wanted to point out that I don’t think the reader to comment ratio that you mentioned is right. I would think it would be much higher, maybe 1:10 or similiar